


We Don't Talk Anymore

by JayGreen0214



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Art by Jaybele, Don't let that OC thing scare you please, F/M, Inspired by Art, Inspired by Music, M/M, More like: how not to deal with feelings, Warning: Cursing, Warning: Excessive Alcohol Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:20:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8979454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayGreen0214/pseuds/JayGreen0214
Summary: {Iwaizumi x Oikawa AU/Canonverse}''Whatever you do, don't think about Oikawa and Iwaizumi going their separate ways and losing touch.''(This is my first Haikyuu fic and I haven't finished the series yet - please go easy on me:'))





	1. We Don't Talk Anymore

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [We Don't Talk Anymore - Tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/250873) by Jaybele. 
  * Inspired by [Have some Oikawa with longer hair heh](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/330642) by Zhangarronxun. 



> As you may or may not have seen, this work was based off/inspired by the work of Jaybele, so I'll link you to her post briefly down here:
> 
> http://jaybele.tumblr.com/post/153205139790/we-dont-talk-anymore-x-whatever-you-do-dont
> 
> (If you want to see it, I do think you're going to have to copy/paste it)
> 
> OH AND if you want to see where I got the idea for an Oikawa with a ponytail, go here:
> 
> http://zhangarronxun.tumblr.com/post/152541424227/have-some-oikawa-with-longer-hair-heh
> 
> This is a super lovely artwork by the super lovely Zhanggarraonxun on Tumblr - definitely the best ponytail Oikawa I have seen!

_Should I text him?_ Oikawa’s hand reached for his phone, but hovered above it.  
He wanted to, but he was afraid.  
What if he wouldn’t read it?  
Or worse, what if he would read it, but ignore it?  
What if he changed phone numbers?  
What if he changed phone numbers _because_ of Oikawa?  
Oikawa pulled his hand back and sighed. 

His phone beeped and Oikawa jumped up. ‘’Want to have lunch?’’

Iwaizumi had never been a fan of abbreviations; he just typed out his entire text. Or he dictated it, that could be it, too. Either way, Oikawa would see him again! 

He wanted to scream and his heart was pounding, but instead he typed, with shaking fingers: ‘’Yeah, sure. When are you available?’’ 

Oikawa had been a fan of abbreviations, but the last time he’d used those when texting Iwaizumi, he got a dictionary to his head the next day during practice. 

Suddenly, his chest felt warm. Practice. The times in which they saw each other every day, where they’d teased each other and laughed together.  
When they were really young, Oikawa used to grab Iwaizumi’s hand whilst walking, Iwaizumi never said anything about it until high school. 

In high school, Iwaizumi had started to change. Not at all in a bad way, but he wouldn’t be seen holding hands with Oikawa in public. 

Oikawa didn’t know if Iwa-chan never knew about his feelings, or just didn’t acknowledge them. He could’ve been scared to reject him; Oikawa was what usually told himself.  
Other times, the pain of Iwa-chan not knowing how badly Oikawa was in love with him, would’ve hurt more than hearing those feelings weren’t mutual. 

Sometimes, Oikawa wondered how blind one could possibly be: he was practically on his knees for Iwaizumi but he never batted an eye.  
That made him feel angry too, but never for long. It took a single look from Iwa-chan to make the butterflies in his stomach flutter like mad hummingbirds. 

‘’I was thinking Friday, one thirty at Sendai Sushi.’’ Oikawa had been so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the message at first. Once he did, his heart picked up speed, again. 

Couldn’t that thing just do what it was supposed to and quit bothering him? It only had to pump around blood, for fuck’s sake. ‘’Sounds good! I’ll see you there!’’

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Two years. It had been two years since they both graduated and left for different universities.  
One year. It had been one year since they last spoke. 

Oikawa lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. His hands were under his head, his ankles crossed.  
_Where did we go wrong?_  
He didn’t understand. Why did they have to lose contact? They promised to stay in touch.  
Iwaizumi was still in his contacts, he’d even let him know he changed phone numbers when he got a new phone, but that had been over six months ago and Iwaizumi never replied. 

There was a lump in his throat and he could feel the tears burning behind his eyes. _Why?_

Bokuto and Akaashi had stayed in touch, and so had Kenma and Kuroo. Hell, Kenma even followed Kuroo to his university and they finally started dating. 

‘’About time.’’ Oikawa had said when Kuroo had called him, out of breath from excitement and maybe other things. Luckily, Kuroo didn’t ask about Iwaizumi. 

When he decided he wouldn’t catch sleep any time soon, Oikawa grabbed his phone and scrolled through Instagram.  
He still had his old phone, but stopped rereading the messages between him and Iwaizumi. It hurt too much. 

Just when he thought he could breathe again, he came across Hinata’s account. They hadn’t seen each other in a long time, either, but that was okay. There were no hard feelings between them and they had parted without distress. 

Except the shrimp had confessed to Tobio and liked to keep the social media updated on their relationship status. 

Right now, that was more than perfect. The video showed them in their shared dorm room, Tobio studying at his desk and Chibi-chan filming from the front camera. 

When the recording beep on Chibi-chan’s phone sounded, Tobio looked up. ‘’Oi, dumbass!’’ He got up, and Chibi-chan giggled. Oikawa double tapped, but didn’t want to continue watching. 

It seemed as if the universe was trying to remind him that he’d failed at seducing his crush, whereas no one else seemed to have the same problem. He hadn’t even had the guts to close the Iwaizumi window and tell him how he felt. 

He put his phone back, not being able to bear his aching chest. Turning around, he pressed his head into his pillow, and felt the stinging tears drip from the corners of his eyes and fade into the cotton from his pillow case. 

Of course it was that exact moment that he had to remember that he used to imagine Iwaizumi with him in this position. His hand in his hair, his heavy breathing in his ear, his body pressed to his own… 

He screamed into his pillow, not able to take it anymore. Why couldn’t he just let go? It had been twelve months since they’d last seen each other! Twelve months! 

He got up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. ‘’Fuck,’’ he whispered to himself, pressing his face into his hand, desperately holding onto the last thread in his head, trying not to break down. 

Somehow, he was really good at upsetting himself, especially when it was about _his_ Iwa-chan. Except it wasn’t really his Iwa-chan… There he went again, couldn’t he just stop thinking? 

Deep breaths, deep breaths. He could almost hear Iwaizumi whispering in his ears, rubbing his back with his hand.  
On the outside, he’d always seemed very hard and mean, but when they were alone, Iwaizumi’s shell fell away and he would be the one that Oikawa knew. 

The soft, kind friend that was always there for him. Even that time he called him at 2 AM because he was scared to lose a match. Iwaizumi had climbed through his window and sat next to him until he’d calmed down, carefully caressing his back and shoulders. 

Of course, there were the times that Iwa-chan had hit him on that very same spot because Oikawa had said something dumb. 

Still, no act of pretentious violence could ever calm down his racing heart, whenever they saw each other. 

Multiple times, Oikawa had almost confessed, but something always interfered. He’d tell himself that if they won this game, he would tell him, but then they would lose, or he just would be too much of a coward. 

Once, he even thought that Iwaizumi felt the same way. It had been that time they had lunch. They were sitting at their table, just talking about how things were, when Iwaizumi suddenly fell silent. 

He looked Oikawa right into his eyes, without speaking. Oikawa thought he saw him leaning forward, but he must’ve seen wrong, because nothing happened. 

After what felt like an eternity, Oikawa opened his mouth and talked about how he was truly hopeless at statistics. Iwaizumi didn’t say a word until their food arrived. 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

‘’Mister Oikawa?’’ Oikawa almost jumped out of his seat, he’d been daydreaming. ‘’Y-yes, sir?’’ 

The professor raised an eyebrow at him. ‘’Did you hear what I said?’’ Oikawa shook his head, knowing that all eyes were on him, and felt the embarrassment colouring his cheeks. 

The professor sighed. ‘’Anyway,’’ and continued talking. Oikawa tried to listen, he really did, but his mind just kept wandering off. 

He still had to go grocery shopping; otherwise he would be eating dry cereal for dinner tonight. Since he couldn’t pay attention, he pretended to take notes, while doodling in his notebook instead.  
This class wasn’t a mandatory one, how much could he miss? 

He didn’t get called out again, luckily, but during lunchtime he started to feel how empty his fridge was. This morning, he’d finished the milk, and was unable to bring something for lunch. First thing after class would be the grocery store. 

With a basket hanging on his lower arm, he made his way through the oversized grocery store that was way too far from home but had everything for the best price. 

Oikawa crouched down to get a carton of milk and felt his legs complain. Last night, when he’d given up the idea of sleep, he’d put on his sports gear and went for a run that ended up lasting longer than he’d thought, and the aftermath was crazy sore legs. 

At least it had cleared his head and he managed to catch two and a half hours of sleep before his alarm went off. 

When he stood up, his movements were rather uncontrolled and he would have fallen if it weren’t for the person behind him. The stranger jumped and probably got the air knocked out of him but he kept his balance. 

‘’Watch out what y-‘’ Oikawa turned around to apologise, but while at it, noticed something. This stranger had a very familiar scent. 

‘’Iwaizumi!’’


	2. Like We Used To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's very short and I'm very sorry.

Oikawa’s mouth almost dropped open, and he had to remind himself that he was in a public place. Else he might have attacked Iwa-chan. In positive sense, of course. 

Meanwhile, his brain was registering how familiar Iwaizumi smelled. It was that same, rich musky scent he’d always had. Although in high school there was usually the salty scent of sweat included, which was now replaced with a soft tone of smoked wood. 

Oikawa had never had a favourite scent, until now. ‘’Oikawa…’’ Iwaizumi’s eyes were wide, and he pronounced his name slowly, as if he was trying to taste the syllables on his tongue. Hastily, Oikawa adjusted his glasses. 

‘’Didn’t expect to see you here, of all places!’’ He smiled, though it felt unnatural, and scratched his neck. ‘’I mean, it’s a public place and everyone needs food but…’’ His voice trailed off, and he didn’t know what he was going to say anymore. 

His eyes had been cast to the floor, but as the silence stretched, they found their way back up again, and there, they found Iwaizumi’s sharp, green eyes looking directly at him. Oikawa straightened his spine, praying he didn’t look as foolish as he felt. 

‘’H-hey,’’ he giggled, ‘’you’ve grown, Iwa-chan.’’ Indeed he had. The last time they were together, neither of them had taken notice of it. Probably because they were too busy talking – or well, Oikawa was talking, Iwaizumi just listened. It was only now that Oikawa noticed that Iwaizumi’s eyes were just above his own. 

‘’You’ve actually grown a lot! You must be like 1.86 right now!’’ Oikawa stood on his toes and pretended to have to reach out to pat Iwaizumi’s head. ‘’Quite exactly.’’ He replied, calmly, but with an undertone in his voice Oikawa couldn’t totally put his finger on. 

‘’How unfair!’’ Oikawa pouted, but it quickly turned into a happy smile he couldn’t control. ‘’I always enjoyed being taller than you; it almost felt like that was the only thing that put me above you, literally and figuratively.’’ 

He giggled at his own stupid joke, although his stomach was very uncomfortably twisting and turning into more knots than any scout could think of.

Iwaizumi looked at him, seemingly unmovably serious, but gave Oikawa a crooked smile. ‘’I can’t believe how much we have to catch up on! How is your life? How is school?’’

Currently, Iwaizumi was a second-year law student at Tokyo University. ‘’Well…’’ Iwaizumi didn’t look Oikawa in the eye. ‘’I changed things up a bit. I’m still majoring in law, but I changed my minor from Japanese to protective law, so I’ll become something like the manager of security.’’

Oikawa frowned at first, but as he realised what Iwaizumi meant, his mouth formed an ‘o’ and he tilted his head. ‘’Woah, Iwaizumi, that is a lot of laws.’’ 

He giggled. Iwaizumi punched his shoulder, but Oikawa could see the traces of a smile on his face. ‘’How mean.’’ 

Oikawa drew out the last word, getting really close to Iwa-chan’s face. Iwaizumi stepped back and took in a deep breath, really fast.  
‘’You still not over that phrase?’’ He asked, looking aside, as if the skimmed milk was really interesting. More interesting than Oikawa, tch. 

‘’No, and I won’t be any time soon.’’ Oikawa crossed his arms, trying his hardest not to think about how Iwaizumi had almost jumped at their near-physical contact. The knot in his stomach was getting painful and it felt as if there was a snake around his throat: curling himself up tighter and tighter, letting in less and less air. 

‘’What have you been up to?’’ Suddenly, the question rolled them into a seamless conversation. It was as if there hadn’t been any time between their last meeting. Oikawa could still feel the old warmth in his chest, the same one he’d always felt when Iwaizumi was close. His stomach was untying, slowly, but surely. 

It wouldn’t have ended if it weren’t for the fact that after a while, Iwaizumi’s phone started ringing. He looked at the screen, and something changed in his face. He quickly looked back at Oikawa. ‘’I’m sorry, I have to-‘’ He paused for a second. ‘’Can I take this?’’ Oikawa nodded. ‘’Of course!’’

So he clicked the green button and held the phone up to his ear. 

‘’Hey babe.’’


	3. I Just Heard You Found The One You've Been Looking For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: there is cursing in here, so if you aren't comfortable with that, don't read. It's near the end of the chapter. Hit Ctrl+F and type ''Iwaizumi!'' and pray it doesn't take you back to the start of the page...

Oikawa’s heart sank. He tried to convince himself of something, anything. But what kind of person calls their mother, friend, sister or even grandma ‘’babe’’? 

If it would be anyone, it certainly wouldn’t be Iwaizumi. 

‘’I told you, I’m grocery shopping. We need milk and-‘’ Iwaizumi frowned. ‘’I left like ten minutes ago!’’ 

The voice at the other side of the phone said something Oikawa couldn’t hear, and for the first time in a while, he looked at his watch. 

They had been talking for two hours.  
_Two hours?_

‘’Yeah, okay, okay. Honey, I didn’t realise it was this late, I got stuck.’’ Iwaizumi’s eyes shot in Oikawa’s direction, who quickly looked at the floor, hoping Iwa-chan hadn’t noticed that he’d been staring after he looked up from his watch. 

‘’Yes, yes, I only have to pay, so I’ll be on my way soon. Later babe.’’ Iwaizumi put his phone away and gave Oikawa an apologetic smile. ‘’I’m afraid I have to go, my girl needs me.’’ 

Oikawa tried his utter best to sound cheerful. ‘’Of course! Go you, on your way!’’ _Please don’t let my smile be too obnoxiously fake._

Together, they walked to the register and paid shortly after each other. Outside, Iwaizumi took a pair of keys out of his pocket and unlocked an old, battered bicycle. Oikawa was surprised it hadn’t fallen apart yet.  
‘’You came by car?’’ Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. ‘’Nope, walked.’’  
Oikawa shook his head, still attempting to be happy for Iwaizumi and his girlfriend, even though his chest was physically aching. 

‘’Well, I’m going then.’’ He made a sharp turn with the steering wheel, and for a moment, Oikawa thought it would snap off. 

One second before Iwaizumi was really gone, Oikawa couldn’t contain himself anymore. ‘’Iwaizumi!’’ He leaned forward on his toes, one hand reached out, nearly grabbing the other’s arm. 

‘’Call me?’’ His voice caught in his throat and for a moment, Oikawa was afraid he was going to start crying right then and there, but he kept his composure.  
More or less. 

‘’Of course.’’ 

Iwaizumi grinned and Oikawa could have died right then and there, his knees went _weak._  
And then he was gone. Just like that, Iwaizumi was on his way, cycling into the life he had made, a life that didn’t seem to include Oikawa Tooru, even though he’d have sworn he used to be so dear to Iwa-chan. 

It hurt, it hurt like hell, and the only thing Oikawa wanted to do was drop everything he was holding, run after Iwaizumi, pull him off his bike and scream at him to take him back. 

Back into his life, at that moment, there was nothing he wanted more.

It hurt even more to realise that Iwaizumi hadn’t mentioned him in the phone call to his girlfriend, after they had been talking for two hours.

He hardly made it home before he broke down. Oikawa dropped onto his bed and buried his face into his pillow. How could one person make him so happy, yet so sad at the same time? 

They hadn’t seen each other in so long, Oikawa had almost expected to be over him. 

Almost. 

Here he was, stuck in the past, crying into his pillow like a child, while the person he was crying over was probably sitting at a fancy dinner table, enjoying the company of a wonderful girl, who was cooking him dinner. 

Perhaps after dinner he would kiss her to thank her for the food, and she would kiss him back. They would continue their kissing until they were gasping for air, and Iwaizumi would lift her up and carry her to their bedroom, where they would… 

Oikawa couldn’t bear to think about it. 

‘’Oikawa?’’ 

He hadn’t even noticed Suga’s knocking on the door. They were roommates, and pretty good friends. 

Suga sort of knew about Iwaizumi, though he didn’t know exactly how bad it was. 

‘’Dinner is ready, but I’ll leave you something to heat up later, okay?’’ He was a good friend, and knew what Oikawa needed at times like these.

\------------------------

‘’Hello?’’ Iwaizumi opened the door, peeking into the room. ‘’Guess who’s late for dinner!’’ 

Iwaizumi tried not to roll his eyes. ‘’I’m kidding.’’ The girl who was now standing at his side said, and kissed his cheek. 

‘’You wouldn’t want me hungry, would you?’’ Iwaizumi grinned, returning the kiss. 

Misaki had been growing out her hair, and it now touched the bottom of her shoulder blades. Her bangs were neatly cut slightly above her eyebrows. 

She was wearing a pink apron that tipped her knees, and her head was just below Iwaizumi’s collar bones. 

‘’I did just finish cooking though, so you can go and set the table.’’ Iwaizumi groaned, but made his way to the cupboards with the plates in it, and set the table for two people. 

His head was spinning with thoughts. Thoughts about one person, one appearance: Oikawa Tooru. 

One year ago, he had decided it was over. They couldn’t see each other again. Every time Iwaizumi’s eyes fell on Oikawa Tooru, his heart made flips and his chest felt as if it was about to explode. 

But he’d never had the guts to talk about his feelings, because he’d convinced himself they would never be requited. 

A small voice had told him that that was nonsense, but an overpowering voice was fear. He was afraid of his feelings, because… He didn’t even dare to admit to himself that he didn’t believe he stood a chance with _Oikawa Tooru._

The boy chased by hoards of pretty fangirls and cheers everywhere he went, he couldn’t believe that that person was the one who could love _him._

Those insecurities cast aside, he was still afraid to admit that he was a gay man in the middle of a community that simply wasn’t very good at accepting gay people. 

Surely, it had been changing, but he was still afraid. He didn’t expect anyone to respond positively to this fear; he was Iwaizumi Hajime after all. 

The guy who walked the halls as if they were his own, who wasn’t afraid of anything. How could he be the one that was afraid to come out and stand up for himself, for his people? 

Fact was, Iwaizumi Hajime wasn’t half as fearless as he portrayed himself to be. He was afraid of nearly everything. 

He could hardly stand to walk in the middle of the hallway, he’d much rather disappear into a far corner. 

Misaki understood him in that, and she saw it when he felt uncomfortable. 

That was, after she found him one and a half years ago, while he was training. Not volleyball, but personal training. 

He’d put on boxing gloves and was punching the punching bag with all the strength he could muster, to try and distract him from his thoughts. 

That day, he’d received the results of his first exams from university. They were pretty awful, in his opinion. He hadn’t failed the semester, but just barely. 

He knew why, he knew exactly why. At night, when he was supposed to be sleeping, his head was buzzing with thoughts of Oikawa. 

Was he supposed to call him?  
Was he supposed to wait for Oikawa to call him?  
Should he just text him? 

It seemed like nothing to worry about when he told Misaki, but it felt like ten thousand tons of concrete on his shoulders. He couldn’t sleep, had trouble getting food down his throat, and couldn’t concentrate while studying. 

He thought he’d hit rock bottom when he got a C in his favourite class. It was a pass, but for his favourite class, it felt like he’d failed. 

So he went down to the gym, put on his boxing gloves, and beat the punching bag until he was sore and his head was so busy feeling physical pain, he couldn’t feel anything else. 

He collapsed onto his knees, leant his head against the bag and sat there. 

Misaki found him in that position, and came running up to him. She thought he’d been hurt, but instead was confronted with a wreck that she once knew as Iwaizumi. 

She’d seen him when he was with his team, and this was far from the Iwaizumi she had always seen. ‘’At least you’re punching something else than Oikawa-san.’’ 

She’d said, and Iwaizumi hit rock bottom right then and there, he broke down crying, and threw himself into Misaki’s arms. 

She wasn’t expecting it, and fell over. Even if she was expecting it, she would have fallen, considering she was about as big as a mouse compared to Iwaizumi. 

The story wrote itself from there: they talked about everything they were going through, how different university was, how much they missed everyone, and how they basically lived on coffee. 

Iwaizumi didn’t mention his crush on Oikawa, though he felt like he had pretty much exposed it, after everything he had said. 

‘’I just feel so fucking useless, you know? And I don’t even know why. It’s like…’’ They were sitting in front of each other, Iwaizumi wiping his tears with a tissue from Misaki. 

‘’Like you need volleyball to make you feel better about yourself,’’ she finished his sentence, looking away with a sad smile. ‘’Yeah, I feel that way too, sometimes.’’ 

It was nice to have someone who understood, who had been to Johzenji and felt it. Felt what he’d felt in that team, their spirit, the tightness of the group. 

Of course, there were his friends to talk to, and Iwaizumi believed that they would always listen, but this was different. When he talked to Misaki he felt… connected.

Their relationship grew and blossomed from there, and soon enough people were talking about them. 

‘’Are you a couple?’’ Was a frequent question, though the answer was always ‘’No!’’, until one day, Iwaizumi put his arm around Misaki and said: ‘’Yes, we are.’’ 

That was that. It had been six months, and there wasn’t a day Iwaizumi hadn’t been thankful for Misaki. There also hadn’t been a day on which his heart hadn’t stung at the silent missing of Oikawa. 

Iwaizumi ignored it as much as he could, but at times, he couldn’t. Those were the days spent on his room, alone. 

He would be ‘studying’ but in reality, he was sitting on his chair, hands in his hair and trying to breathe regularly. Often, he would scroll through their old messages, rereading. 

The words were so simple, yet there was something about it that made him shiver every time. 

Oikawa was different from every person he’d ever dated, every girl he’d drunkenly kissed at a party, even different from that one boy he’d pecked on the lips because he lost a bet. 

Not that he had ever kissed Oikawa. Except when they were little. 

He used to kiss his cheeks like… He used to do it a lot. Iwaizumi wasn’t very good with words and Oikawa’s cheeks were softer than his mother’s cashmere sweater.

‘’Hajime? Are you all right? You haven’t said anything since we started eating.’’ 

Misaki looked at him from the other side of the table, slightly frowning. 

Iwaizumi quickly swallowed his food. It felt like a stone going down his oesophagus. He wasn’t hungry anymore. 

‘’Yeah I’m-‘’ What could he say? He consciously didn’t tell Misaki about Oikawa, he could hardly say his name, let alone casually mention they met in the grocery store. 

He would either start blushing like a mad man, or cry.  
He didn’t feel like doing either, at the moment. 

‘’I don’t really have anything to talk about right now.’’ Misaki nodded slowly. ‘’Will you be going to the training centre later?’’ 

He considered telling her about his plans to start running again, the weather was nice enough for it, but the only times he ran was when he had to think, and he really didn’t want Misaki to be digging around in his head right now. 

He just wanted to be left alone for a while. ‘’Yeah I think so, just need to see if I don’t have too much studying to do.’’  
Misaki nodded, continuing eating. ‘’All right.’’ 

Iwaizumi got three more bites in before he felt like he was going to suffocate, then he got up, and walked to their bedroom. 

He knew he could easily postpone his studying for an hour or two; he’d been keeping up with his homework and studying perfectly lately. He was ahead in some subjects, even. 

Actually, his life had been pretty much perfect, ignoring his occasional breakdowns. So he changed into shorts and a t-shirt, put on sports’ shoes and a jacket. 

When he walked back into the living room, Misaki was cleaning up the table. ‘’I’ll do that when I get back, leave it.’’ Without waiting for a reply, he gave her a quick kiss, and was off.

Damn you, Oikawa. He thought, knowing it was a lie.

‘’Fuck you!’’ He hissed under his breath, cursing every inch and ounce of his beloved Tooru, for ruining his near-perfect life by simply appearing in the grocery store, as he threw punch after punch at that stupid bag. 

‘’Fuck…’’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it again, but rested his forehead against the slightly swaying punching back in front of him. 

Fuck that guy, he tried to tell himself, he hit the bag and imagined it was Oikawa. 

Fuck him and his perfect eyes, his beautiful smile, the hair he’d apparently been growing out that Iwaizumi wanted to bury his hands in, fuck him. 

His punches were weak, and he heard Oikawa in his head. ‘’Not my face, Iwa-chan!’’ 

His heart swelled, and so did the tears in his eyes. He breathed in and punched again, and again. 

The bag wasn’t Oikawa anymore. Still, fuck him.

 

“Iwazumi!” He'd looked so… Helpless, as if he needed Iwaizumi to help him. “Call me?” 

Yes, yes, there was nothing Iwaizumi wanted more than Oikawa. 

No, he thought. It wasn’t a good idea, Misaki told him that, and she knew. Right? Misaki knew what was best, right? 

Wait, what did Misaki know about how he felt towards Oikawa? He had never told her. He had never told anyone - except for his mom. 

No, Misaki wasn’t here right now, she couldn’t hold him back. He wanted Oikawa, he _needed_ him. The only thing holding him back from Oikawa was Misaki. 

Now that she wasn’t here, every restraint he had, the wall he had built up to keep him from Oikawa, crumbled.

Nothing, absolutely nothing could stop him from getting to him.

The thought of Oikawa, near him- it made his breath catch in his throat, and his heart wasn't the only thing that throbbed. 

He pressed “Oikawa” and put the phone to his ear. It rang once, twice, thrice… four times… five… “H-hello?”

That time in the gym he fell against Misaki, crying, was not rock bottom.


	4. I Still Wonder Why I Can't Move On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is this me processing the break-up with my girlfriend? 
> 
>  
> 
> ...... No.............

Spinalis thoracis. 

A long-stretched muscle group located near the spine in a human’s back. That’s what they’d be doing tomorrow, for about half of the day. The anatomy of a human’s back. 

One would think that it couldn’t get more boring, while in fact, a back said a lot more about a person than you would think it did. 

Shy people walking with their backs bent forward, confident people with their backs straight, and of course it lead up to the shoulders, the easiest way to information. 

Often, Oikawa had found on his fellow students, that the Trapezius muscle group was tense. He’d also found it when he was younger, on his mum. 

The muscles would be tied into painful knots, that caused headaches. He used to massage his mum quite often, and her headaches would subside. 

It was partially how he had gotten so interested in physiotherapy. The other part mostly coming from volleyball, of course. 

He would like to specialise in sports physiotherapy one day, he thought to himself. 

Helping out athletes with overexerted muscles or tired joints, it would combine almost all of his interests perfectly. 

If he were able to photograph his clients, it would be even more perfect, but he wouldn’t dare ask for such a thing. 

As his thoughts went to photographs and muscular bodies, they naturally landed on Iwaizumi. He hadn’t been able to see his figure very well today, due to the fact it had been rather chilly outside and Iwa-chan had been wearing a jacket. 

Too bad.

He used to love to watch the guy’s muscles work. During practice, during matches, while running, when he took off his sweaty T-shirt… 

What a shame Iwa-chan hadn’t decided to make volleyball his career, then maybe, just maybe, Oikawa would end up helping his muscles or joints out one day.

His phone was ringing. 

He realised that only now. How long had it been ringing? This could have been the first time, but it could also be the ring before the call went to voicemail. 

Oikawa picked up his phone and gazed at the name on the screen. 

Iwaizumi Hajime. 

He'd never dared to put him in his phone as Iwa-chan, for some reason.  
Okay, he did know that reason.  
It reminded him too much of how close they'd been, and how far they were now. “Iwa-chan” was someone he used to know - Iwaizumi was someone he… Who was Iwaizumi Hajime to him? 

He felt like he was supposed to know him, but when they were talking, he felt different, far away, as if his voice was coming from an echo somewhere on the other side of the world.  
Oikawa felt as if his eyes weren’t seeing what was really there, as if a haze had settled in front of them. 

His heart pounded in his chest and his fingers were trembling, but he still pressed the green button. He swallowed. 

‘’H-hello?’’ 

Stuttering sure was the way to go if you’d seen each other mere hours ago. It must have made him seem even more attractive. 

_Except Iwaizumi doesn’t care about whether I’m attractive or not - he already has someone…_

That someone being a girl. He could hardly believe it himself; Oikawa would have sworn on his own life his Iwa-chan was gay. 

Well, they could bury him now - alive or dead.  
He didn’t believe he would find it in himself to care. 

Seriously? 

One guy rules my life? 

He couldn’t help it. Iwaizumi had always been there, always. Now that he was gone, there was a hole in his chest, eating away at his emotions, feelings, whatever it could find. 

Sometimes he wished the hole would eat his heart so he really wouldn’t be able to feel anything. He was stuck in a place he didn’t want to be - the past and his awfully wrong view of what could have been the future. 

He wanted to live in the present, focus on his studies, his friends, perhaps even a lover. Not that he hadn’t had those, plenty of boys had been in this room with him, shared the bed, shared his body… 

 

Some girls too, though that somehow always ended in disappointment. 

Having a girl ride you was much less fun than most guys made it seem. Sitting on top of another man however… 

He didn’t dare imagine what it would be like to do just that with Iwaizumi. 

Hear him groan like he’d made the other guys do - not something pleasant to think about when you know it won’t ever happen.

‘’Uhm… Oikawa? Are you there?’’ 

Crap, he had a phone to his ear! 

In his endless thoughts, Oikawa had forgotten all about it. Dear, he did hope he hadn’t said anything out loud…’’Yes, yes! I’m here! I’m sorry I- I’m currently busy with…. Something…’’ 

That something being thinking about you fucking me like there is no tomorrow - God he was ashamed of himself. 

Luckily, he wasn’t anywhere in public; his face was burning. ‘’No, no, it’s all right. I was just wondering, see we didn’t really get a chance to catch up properly today and I was wondering if you’re free tomorrow.’’ 

He said ‘’I was wondering’’ twice, and Oikawa couldn’t help but smile. Iwaizumi seemed very confident and perfect in just about any way, but when it came to words, he tended to be unable to make long sentences, even on paper. 

His teachers often returned his tests with red circles around often repeated phrases, telling him to be more creative with how he told a story. 

Iwaizumi never bothered to do anything about it, his grades were always sufficient enough to pass. 

‘’Ah, yes, after school. My last class ends at a quarter past five, you could come pick me up.’’ 

It was a little too early for dinner, but did he just ask Iwaizumi to pick him up after class?  
Wasn’t that something boyfriends did? No, he’d done it often enough for friends. 

Still, it felt different with Iwaizumi.

“You got an address for me?”  
“8 Chome-17-1 Minamisenju.” He was surprised it came out so smoothly, even though the address was etched into his brain like the alphabet. 

“All right, I'll see you there, then, tomorrow.” 

Oikawa could hardly believe it, his stomach made a couple of flips and a strange, tingly feeling went through his legs. He held his breath for a moment to stop himself from squealing. 

Squealing, _seriously?_

“Y-yeah, see you there.” 

He smiled. Iwaizumi was never one to waste a lot of time on saying goodbye, but it seemed now as if he still had words, somewhere. 

However, they didn't come out and after a few seconds of listening to each other's breathing, the line went dead. 

Now, Oikawa was squealing, and he buried his face in his pillow. Involuntarily, he wiggled his feet under his thighs.

“Oh my god.” He whispered into his pillow, before breaking out into laughter. “Oh my god!” He rolled back hugging the pillow to his stomach. 

Then the door opened and there stood Suga, a slight frown on his face. “You okay?” Oikawa nodded, grinning to both himself and Suga. 

“Would you like some dinner?” Oikawa rolled off the bed, falling to the floor, but it didn't hurt and even if it did, he wouldn't have cared. 

He fell onto Suga’s shoulder, the biggest smile on his face since a long time. “I am starving.”

\------

Iwaizumi sighed deeply and put his phone away. 

At first, he thought he'd call and walk home at the same time, but as he was talking with Oikawa, his feet took a different path. 

He had stranded in a small park. He knew it well; he went here often in summer to study with Misaki or just to sit. 

They’d had a couple of dates here, too. 

“Walk on, go home,” he told himself, but instead, he sat down on a wooden bench and put his bag next to him. 

He unzipped it and took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Popping it open, he recalled how many times Misaki had urged him to stop, even after he told her he only smoked ‘’on demand’’. 

She didn't get it, but he'd silently agreed to disagree on his bad habit of smoking and hid every sign of it. 

Right now, his heart was pounding and his fingers were shaking as he took a cigarette from the pack and put it to his lips. 

_Oh, how I wish it was your lips instead of a cigarette._

And for a moment, he could almost see Oikawa's face in front of him, laughing. With a soft click, a flame appeared on top of the lighter and just moments later, the scent of burning tobacco filled his nose. 

Letting the vapour roll out of his mouth, he leant back, closed his eyes, and sighed. 

He'd never smoked full-time, unlike what Misaki thought; he only did it when he was stressed. When they got together, even as friends, that had been more often than not, so it must have seemed like he was a chain smoker. 

The one thing he didn't do was toss his cigarette butts on the ground. He always made sure to find a bin or put it back into the pack. He couldn't stand litter. 

That was the one thing Misaki had approved of. 

Misaki was by far the best that had happened to him over the past two years, and he would be thankful for her until he died. However, there was a voice in the back of his head, telling him they would never work out. 

Besides the fact he wasn't even straight, he kept comparing her to Oikawa. 

For a couple of months, he'd convinced himself he could be one of those gay men who found love in a woman and stayed with her forever. 

But he _knew,_ he had known since the beginning, he wasn't one of those. He wasn't good at ignoring his own feelings. 

Never minding the fact that there was a boy who lived inside his heart, whose smiles, giggling and obnoxious words made him wonder where he’d gone wrong. 

Why did he leave Oikawa?  
Why hadn't he reached out if he knew that Oikawa was the one he wanted, had always wanted, and would probably want for the rest of his life? 

He didn't have an answer.  
Well, maybe he did, but he didn't want to see it. 

Right now, all he could see was the smoke that stung his eyes, and in his ears, the sound of Oikawa's voice.

“Not my FACE, Iwa-chan!” He couldn't help but smile through the tears that came from the smoke - or so he told himself.

\---------------------

The building wasn't how Iwaizumi had expected it to be. 

It was about two stories tall, and very broad, with large parts made entirely out of glass. He was way too early: it was a quarter to five.  
Thirty minutes before the class ended. 

He couldn't wait outside; he was agitated and kept hopped from one foot to the other.  
So he went inside, walking to what seemed like the reception. “Uhm, hello...” he said, and a rather fat lady with mid-life-crisis spiked dark red hair looked up, pushing her tiny glasses up her nose. 

She took longer than a moment to size him up, and Iwaizumi became very aware of how tall he was, how his shoulders were pushing his jacket to its limit, how he'd really, really tried to make his hair look nice. 

He wondered if he'd missed a spot while shaving this morning, or if there was already stubble on his cheeks and jawline.

“Hi.”

Her voice was high and sharp, almost painful to his ears. She would make a really good librarian; no one would want to hear her yell “Quiet!”, everyone would suffer immediate hearing loss. 

“I am-uh, looking for Oikawa, Oikawa Tooru.” 

She didn't answer him, just started typing rapidly on her keyboard, acrylic fingernails tapping loudly. “Is he a friend of yours?” 

“No!” He wanted to shout. “No, he's the guy I had a hopeless crush on but let go because I thought I didn't have a chance but I regret and now I'm in a fake relationship to pretend I don't feel anything for him anymore!” 

_Fuck._

A sudden rush of anger, sadness and desire turned his blood ice cold. 

That sure was a lot of self-reflection in less than two seconds. 

He couldn't talk, he just buried his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and nodded his head, trying to breathe. 

Where was this coming from? 

“Well, I ain't supposed to tell you this but,” she loudly chewed her gum, nose slightly wrinkled. “He's in the gymnasium, down that hall, to the left.” 

Iwaizumi wondered what Oikawa was doing in a gymnasium, until he remembered that he was studying physiotherapy. He was probably doing some physical practice. 

Compared to hour-long lectures until six pm or a late one at eight, that seemed really nice. 

He'd soon found the place, and was able to look inside. He stood, hands in his pockets, one ankle crossed over the other, leaning against the wall. 

Inside, there were about four dozen tables. Not wooden tables to write on, but massage tables. Almost all of them were occupied, by what Iwaizumi assumed to be volunteers. 

They laid on their stomachs, arms crossed under their faces.  
Except for the students, everyone was shirtless. Some girls still had their bras on, but most of them had them clicked open, straps dropped to their sides. 

The students carefully massaged their backs, hands shiny with oil. An older man walked around, sleeves of his sports jacket rolled up, checking on his students and their “test subjects”. 

Iwaizumi’s eyes found Oikawa, and his breath caught in his throat. 

Apparently, Oikawa had been growing his hair out, and today, he'd tied it back into a tiny ponytail. He was wearing a white T-shirt, splattered with oil stains on his chest. 

With soft, caring movements, he massaged the volunteer's back. 

It was a boy with blond, curly hair, and a small, lean figure. It wasn't the boy, his soft, shiny hair, or even how perfectly smooth his skin seemed to be under Oikawa’s hands, it was the sweet, content look on Oikawa's face. 

It sent angry shivers down Iwaizumi's spine, his chest clenched and his nostrils flared. Trying to remain calm, Iwaizumi crossed his arms, pressing them into his chest, containing his breathing. 

Why was he so jealous all of a sudden? 

It was just a boy! He was younger than Oikawa, way too young for him. 

Right? 

By now it was five to five, still twenty minutes to go. 

Trying to entertain himself, Iwaizumi looked around at the people. There weren't more boys or more girls, and no one seemed to be particularly awful at this, he thought at first. 

Ten minutes later, he had counted two more girls than boys, in a total group of thirty-six, and one boy in particular seemed to be off his game. 

His volunteer didn't complain though, and the feedback he got from his teacher wasn't extreme, judging by his response. 

Actually, their conversation looked quite nice; the teacher smiled and pat the student on his shoulder as he continued his round. 

When he arrived at Oikawa, Iwaizumi's heart started beating faster. Their conversation was light-hearted, Oikawa even laughed, the volunteer giggling into his crossed arms. 

Bloody hell, that kid was gorgeous. 

The boy had bright, blue eyes -visible from a distance like that!-, perfectly, straight, white teeth, and his hair was adorably messy. 

Iwaizumi's chest was tight with jealousy and… Fear? 

Just how smitten with Oikawa was he? 

On the other hand, that volunteer boy may be pretty, he wasn't nearly as breath-taking as Oikawa. 

His hair was pulled back, but part of it wasn't long enough to fit into the ponytail and formed a tousled, fluffy mess on his head. 

His eyes were light brown and the sharp fluorescent lights of the gymnasium reflected them in a way that gave Iwaizumi butterflies in his stomach. 

In an attempt distract himself from staring at Oikawa, Iwaizumi looked at his watch. 

Seven minutes left. 

When he looked up, the teacher was in front of him and Iwaizumi nearly jumped. 

“Hey, stranger.” He said, a kind smile on his face as he held out his hand.  
Iwaizumi took it, noting the man had quite a firm grip. Before Iwaizumi could say another word, the teacher spoke. 

“You here for one of my students?” 

“Yeah, I'm here to pick up Oikawa Tooru.” 

There was a silence in which the teacher looked sternly at Iwaizumi. 

Eventually, he sighed. 

“He's an excellent student, but he seems to have something else than his studies on his mind at times.” 

Iwaizumi was surprised at how open the man spoke about Oikawa; it wasn't something he was used to. When he looked at him, Iwaizumi saw a flicker of worry on his face. Iwaizumi nodded, and it was as if they had a silent agreement. 

Keep an eye on Oikawa. 

Honestly, there were a lot of things Iwaizumi wanted, but Oikawa being happy, it was subconsciously on the top of that list.  
If it meant that he'd have to get out of Oikawa's life himself, he would do it. Not without second thoughts but, he'd still do it.  
He knew that it would tear him apart to never see Oikawa again, but even if he had to chop himself into tiny pieces, he would do it. Anything to know for certain Oikawa was living with a genuine smile on his face. 

Whilst Iwaizumi was in deep thought, the teacher had turned around and was now finishing up the lesson. 

Students stood up straight, stretching their backs. Some people playfully wiped their oily hands on each other, cackling and running around. 

Iwaizumi's eyes found Oikawa, who was cracking his neck and laughing with his volunteer. The boy got up, hopping skillfully off the table. 

Iwaizumi _tried,_ he really tried, to convince himself they weren't flirting. 

But it was a hard thing to believe when the boy kept giggling and touching Oikawa, even as he was packing his bag. 

Oikawa straightened up and the boy squeezed his biceps, looking like one of Oikawa's old fangirls while doing so. 

Although, with those girls, Iwaizumi never felt like this. 

His stomach clenched, the blood surged in his ears and was it just him or was the room getting hotter? 

He wanted to grab Oikawa's face and kiss him, right then, right there. Kiss him until he was shaking and begging for air. 

He wanted to prove that blond piece of shit who Oikawa was with, who _owned_ him. Except Oikawa wasn't his. 

That hurt even more to realise now. 

“Iwa-chan!” 

Oikawa was walking up to him, bag slung over his shoulders, waving. Iwaizumi looked up, snapping out of his jealous haze. 

“I called your name like three times, but you only responded to Iwa-chan.” He was in front of him now, grinning. The blond boy was at his side, reaching up to Oikawa's shoulder in height. 

There weren't any butterflies in his stomach, it rather felt like hummingbirds, buzzing against his belly, trying to get out. Their tiny wings stirring up the air and making him feel a little fuzzy. 

“Good afternoon to you too, dumbass.” 

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and even more so when Oikawa pouted. “Oh right! This is Thomas, he's an exchange student.” 

For someone who was used to pronouncing only Japanese names, Oikawa did a fairly good job saying ‘’Thomas’’, in Iwaizumi’s opinion. “From America.” 

Thomas held out his hand, and Iwaizumi shook it, trying not to crush the boy’s fragile little hands while also trying to get it through his head that Iwaizumi wasn't to be messed with. 

Not that the boy had given it any thought, though. 

There was the beep of a text notification and Thomas took his phone from his pocket. After a few seconds of staring at the screen, reading the text, he turned to Oikawa. 

Stuttering and in broken Japanese, he explained he had to go. 

Oikawa gave him a warm smile and nodded. 

Iwaizumi's heart stung, and he averted his eyes to the floor. 

All the while, students were filing past, on their way to the exit, cheering to finally be free. 

“Did you have anything in mind that you want to do?” Oikawa asked, his fingers curling into the loose fabric of Iwaizumi's jacket. 

The stinging melted away and Iwaizumi's heart started to speed up.  
Though he perfectly recognised the expression on Oikawa's face: the way his eyes seemed to gaze at something a million miles away, and the slight shift of his shoulders. 

Something was making him uncomfortable and his mind had run off elsewhere to distract him from it. “Not really…’’ 

\------

They ended up in a small, rather dark cafe. It was warm, cosy, and their iced tea was excellent. 

‘’Oikawa!’’ 

Both of them looked up to see Watachi, standing just in the doorway. He waved, grinning happily. 

‘’My my, it sure has been a long time since I’ve seen you.’’ Without any warnings, he flopped down at their table. 

‘’Yeah, it has.’’ Oikawa smiled, next to him, Iwaizumi shrank in his chair. 

He felt strange, as if he wasn’t worthy to see his old teammate. 

Yet.... Yet there the boy was, beaming at him, like they were old friends who had been sailing the seven seas together and were finally reunited after twenty lonely years in a prison. 

Something about the boy’s smile eased the knots in his stomach, and he sat up straight, unconsciously moving closer to Oikawa. 

‘’Excuse me, miss!’’ Watachi called out to a tall, dark-haired waitress. ‘’Could I have a flat white?’’ She nodded and wrote it down on her notepad. 

Just as she was about to walk away, Oikawa stopped her and asked for a hot chocolate with whipped cream. 

‘’What is a flat white?’’ Iwaizumi questioned out loud, frowning. 

Watachi shrugged his coat off and put it over his chair. ‘’It’s coffee with so much milk you don’t taste the coffee anymore.’’ 

He rubbed his eyes. ‘’I feel like I’ve been pulling all-nighters all week, but I can’t stand coffee, so I usually go for this.’’ 

Suddenly, he shot up. 

‘’Oh! I have an idea! Let’s do a reunion! I’ll call the others!’’ 

Iwaizumi opened his mouth to protest, but was silenced by a warm, soft hand on his mouth. Oikawa smiled at him, shaking his head once. 

He’d known what Iwaizumi was about to do, and stopped him, just like he’d done so often, in the years they’d known each other. 

Now _that_ felt like the sailors of the seven seas who’d been locked in a lonely prison for twenty years. 

Watachi stood up and walked outside, phone in hand, to make his calls. While he was gone, their drinks came, and Oikawa scooped some whipped cream off the top of his cup with his finger. 

‘’Oh! This is good!’’ He said, mouth full of whipped cream. 

‘’Don’t talk with your mouth full, dumbass.’’ Iwaizumi did not understand why Oikawa smiled so brightly at that. 

He never really would.


	5. Just The Way You Did So Easily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teeny tiny chapter before everything goes to shit, hehe (excuse my language). You definitely deserved this after the long wait, and much more, but that will come! I will soon have time :)

Sighing and exhausted, but smiling, Oikawa put his bag down. It had been a good day. 

A really good one, actually. 

First, there was school, which was fun nowadays. The classes finally felt useful and he had amazing teachers. Plus, he really loved physiotherapy and living on his own, even though he had roommates. 

Then, there had been Iwaizumi - it made his stomach tingle just thinking of his name. 

Iwaizumi, wearing _that_ shirt with _that_ jacket, that clung to his body so well it almost looked like the fabric was about to snap.  
Iwaizumi, his jaw clenched tight when he looked at Thomas, the muscles in his lower arms flexing and twitching - Oikawa had seen him before with that look; he was jealous. 

He felt slightly bad to realise that he'd liked that Iwaizumi had been jealous, but not enough to will it away. 

He dropped on his bed, lifted his foot and started to untie his shoelaces. Just when he put down his second shoe, the door opened and Suga walked in, holding a rather big box. 

“Hey, Oikawa.” He smiled. 

“Hey Suga.” Suga remained in the door opening, as if he was waiting for something. “Something wrong?” Oikawa wondered aloud. 

Suga quickly shook his hand. “No, no, not at all! In fact, there is something I want to give you.” _Oh..._

Suga walked up to him, and Oikawa sat up, crossing his legs. “I noticed you weren't looking so well… A little uhm… Lonely…” 

There he was at it again, pinpointing people's exact feelings, without judging them. Sometimes, it was nice, other times, Oikawa wished Suga wouldn't see through him like that. Then again, Suga was a Marketing student - looking through people was quite a necessary skill.

“And I know that this isn't exactly _allowed_ but I figured that your feelings are more important than some stupid rule so…” He sat the box down in front of him, but Oikawa could only look at him, mouth dropped to the floor. 

Did Suga just forfeit rules in favour of making him feel better? 

“T-thank you…” He stammered, not really sure how to respond otherwise. “Go on, open it.” Suga waved at the box, a grin on his face. 

Oikawa did and… “OH MY GOD SUGA! ARE YOU- THIS…” 

There were tears running down his face before he even felt them in his eyes, and he tried to wipe them away, but Suga had probably already seen them. 

In the box sat a small, extremely fluffy bunny, with fur the colour of Oikawa's eyes, in a braided basket. “This is mad - you - _you_ are mad.” 

He was still wiping at his eyes and cheeks, still aware that it was no use. “Do you like him?” Oikawa picked the bunny up from the box and held him in his hands. He was soft and warm, his nose nuzzling against Oikawa's chest. 

“Are you kidding? I love him, already!” He was beaming, tears slowly drying.  
Suga was grinning broadly, glad to see his friend happy. 

“I'll let you two settle now, figured you could probably just let him hop around the room. I heard you can teach them to poop in one spot.” 

Oikawa chuckled as Suga closed the door behind him. 

“So… What do I call you, bunny?” 

He asked, stroking the animal’s fur. He thought about it for a while, going through names out loud. 

“Thumper? Like the rabbit from Bambi?” 

But the bunny didn't even move his head so he decided against it. 

“Wait, you're brown. How about Coco?” 

At this, the bunny even flinched, as if he was cringing. “Definitely not, huh.” 

He tried Peanut, Cookie, Peanut Butter Cookie, even Iwa-chan, but he was never approved of.  
Eventually, they ended up on the floor, Oikawa rustling through the basket he had by now removed from the box and placed next to his bed on the floor, looking for inspiration. 

He found a thick, soft blanket that had “Washable!” on the label and a… leash? 

What was he supposed to do with _that_?

“I've heard of people walking their cats, but generally these are for dogs and as far as I am concerned, you are not a dog…” He mumbled to himself and to his comrade. 

_Bump._  
“Huh?” Did he just feel that right? The bunny was sitting beside him on the floor, and if he wasn't imagining things, Oikawa was sure that he'd just stomped his foot. 

“What's it? Do you need to use the toilet?” 

Silence. 

Oikawa looked at his hand, and then, slowly, feeling mildly crazy and concerned for himself, swayed the leash. “Do you want to go for a walk?” 

More silence. 

“Come on, you have to start communicating with me, otherwise this will never work.” 

But the bunny kept his tiny mouth shut.  
With a deep sigh, Oikawa picked him up and looked him in the eyes. 

“You are too adorable to go unnamed, so I suggest we come up with something real- HII!” The bunny licked his nose and oh dear, that tickled. “You are just a tiny dog!” And then he realised. “Inu! Your name is Inu!”

Two weeks passed and Oikawa taught Inu to poop and pee in a container he'd placed close to the door.  
He slept in his basket, tucked in with his blanket and an emergency carrot. 

Other than that, the weeks were uneventful, besides the test he got an 80% score on. 

He called Iwaizumi in excitement, but the only voice he heard was the voicemail. Actually, he couldn't reach Iwaizumi at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can decide for yourself if Oikawa is on drugs or if he talks to his rabbit the way I talk to my dog - or maybe we're both on drugs...  
> Also, ''Inu'' is Japanese for ''dog'' and ''shiba'' means ''small'' so Shiba Inus are literally small dogs, heh.
> 
> ALSO MY LOVELY EDITOR (AND BEST FRIEND) MADE ART FOR THIS FIC SO GO CHECK THAT OUT IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT INU LOOKS LIKE  
> https://jgartcollector.tumblr.com/post/165827331350/this-is-inu-oikawas-rabbit-from-we-dont-talk


	6. (S)he's Holding Onto You So Tight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was working on this but suddenly it was eight pages long and a lot of stuff had to happen so I improvised and split 'em up, enjoy!

‘’Iwachi?’’ 

After two years of knowing each other, this nickname had more or less replaced his real name. It started on a drunk night in their first year, they had been giggling together with a group of other first years. They had by now forgotten the actual conversation that lead up to it, but the name still stuck.

It had been three days since Iwaizumi had last seen Oikawa, and he had felt more and more empty as those days dragged on. There was something in his chest that made him feel… Nothing. As if an animal  had bitten a hole into him from the inside. He couldn’t shake it even if he tried, and the only times he wasn’t thinking of Oikawa were when he was either completely engrossed in his studies, or when he was sleeping. 

Which was likely due to the fact that he forgot 90% of what he dreamt - he wouldn’t be surprised if those forgotten hours included Oikawa, because the remembered ones sure did. 

What was worse than that, was that every time he and Misaki were having sex or making out, Oikawa did not leave his mind. _Worst_ was that thinking about Oikawa lying under him instead of Misaki got him hotter than ever before. 

Misaki was not complaining; she had actually talked to him about it with a villainous grin on her face. She went down on him later that night, which she hardly ever did, so Iwaizumi figured Oikawa brought at least that much good into his relationship.  
Yeah, their sex life was skyrocketing, and no one was complaining. 

So why did he feel so bad? 

He felt the need to drop everything and just… Do nothing, or rather, everything he had ever dreamt of. 

He felt like going completely insane. When he walked past a river or canal, he wanted to jump in, he wanted to down entire bottles of hard liquor, smoke until he was sure his lungs were black, and most of all, he wanted to obnoxiously fuck Oikawa up against a wall. 

It had something freeing, thinking like that after always being such a goody two shoes. People who had known him but not well enough would never say that he had been one, but then again: they didn't know him like that. 

Oikawa did, and he would be astonished if not literally blown away by his recent… Developments. 

“Hajime.” 

Iwaizumi nearly jumped from his seat and looked over at Misaki, who was sitting across from him, eating the ramen they had prepared together. 

They were acting like a real couple: living together, cooking together, regular sex, yet… “Yeah?” Misaki had wrinkles between her eyebrows, but also little smile lines under her eyes, just above some smudged mascara she hadn't bothered to remove. 

“Are you okay? You've been a little off lately. Should I be worried?”

Iwaizumi shook his head. “No, no I'm fine. It's just that the upcoming exams have been keeping me busy and I am preoccupied with studying.” 

That was partially true, but the whole truth was that he wanted to throw his books into a fire and dance around it. 

“Do you want to go out tonight?” 

Misaki stared at him for a good two minutes. They hardly ever went out; usually they stayed in with some wine or cheap beer and illegally streamed films.  
Lately, Misaki would put on her velvet shorts and straddle him before they could even open the website. 

After two times, they learned to take it to the bedroom; they couldn’t flip couch cushions forever. 

‘’But it’s Thursday.’’ Iwaizumi shrugged, he really didn’t care right now. ‘’Okay, wild one.’’ Misaki chuckled to herself.

She had put on a black dress that left her shoulders bare apart from the tiny spaghetti straps, she had retouched her makeup, removed the smudged mascara and applied another layer, she let her hair down and put on a pair of heels. 

She was breathtaking - and she knew it. 

That was what made her the most beautiful, without doubt. Misaki's confidence and the way she held the world made her more than a pretty girl, they made her a gorgeous human being. 

Iwaizumi loved her. 

Plus, making out on the dance floor was pretty fun, even though his feet failed to move properly over the sticky sprung floor. 

When they were sick of breathing in other people's sweat and alcohol breath, they stepped outside into the cool air of the night and simultaneously lit up cigarettes. 

“It's strange how you bust me for smoking, but when we go out, you're like a chimney.” Misaki giggled and blew some smoke into his face. 

She'd had too much to drink, and was probably going to drink more. 

“Misaki-chan!” 

There was a girl who drunkenly slapped Misaki on the shoulder and even more drunkenly started making conversation.  
Soon enough, Iwaizumi was standing in the middle of a group of chittering girls. 

He stepped out immediately. 

He stood alone, trying to focus his attention on the ground as to not look as awkward as he felt, until a boy with pink hair came up to him. He was quite a lot shorter than Iwaizumi and a lot thinner too, probably hardly had any muscle mass. 

But he also had big, blue eyes and a sweet smile. For a while, they didn't say anything. “So… Do you come here more often?” Iwaizumi attempted to start a conversation. The boy chuckled, dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his foot. He was wearing worn-out blue sneakers. 

“That is the worst pick-up line I've ever heard, and I've heard it a lot, must be a top thing, you're not all that creative.” 

Iwaizumi was baffled. This little boy had a big mouth. 

“I wasn't…” The boy chuckled again, waving the words away. “I know, I know, you're here with your 'girlfriend’.” 

This kid had some nerve. 

“She is my girlfriend!” He wanted to say more, but the boy just looked at him with an unbelieving frown on his face. 

“If you'll excuse me, I am going to the bathroom.” 

Without waiting for an answer, Iwaizumi turned around and walked away. He didn't want to go back into the club just yet, he wasn't ready to be squashed between the moving bodies again. 

So he walked around the building until he came to a fairly quiet corner and leant against the wall. “I didn't expect you to be a public urination kind of guy.” The boy giggled to himself as if his own jokes were oh-so funny, but Iwaizumi just got more pissed off. 

“Would you not be so… So…” 

The boy stepped right in front of him, so close Iwaizumi could have snapped his neck if he wanted to.  
He did sort of want to. 

“So what?” The boy tilted his head, smiling teasingly, and Iwaizumi felt something weird in his stomach. 

Without finishing his sentence, he grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt, turned and slammed him against the wall. The boy struggled for breath for a second or so before grinning again. 

“I did expect you to be that kind of guy.” 

Iwaizumi set his knee between the boy’s legs, looking down at him so they were face to face. 

“Do you ever just shut the fuck up, little shit?” 

The boy’s mouth opened, but Iwaizumi silenced him before there were words. By kissing him. There was no romance, no tenderness, it was almost violent. 

The boy gripped at Iwaizumi's shoulders, his tiny hands unable to grasp the full circumference, although that didn't stop his nails from digging in. At the same time, he was writhing his hips against Iwaizumi's knee between his legs, presumably powerless against Iwaizumi's strength, but _needy._

He tasted of beer and chapstick, his hands were cold, but _soft._

Iwaizumi felt his way down the boy’s body, following the gentle curve of his waist down to his small, straight hips. He hooked his index fingers under his belt loops, lowered his knee and pulled the boy closer in one fiercely fluid motion. 

Maybe their hips crashing together would have hurt, maybe pushing him up against the wall until he stood on his toes would have hurt, maybe the boy biting his lip should have hurt, but it didn't, because they were running on ecstasy, alcohol, and tobacco-induced adrenaline. 

When they finally pulled apart, they were panting. Iwaizumi prayed to whatever God was up there that his hard-on went unnoticed. 

“Hey, you want to get drinks?” The boy asked, wiping the saliva from his chin - drunk makeout sessions were messy. Iwaizumi nodded, he was urging for a drink, unable to handle all of the thoughts going through his head. 

Before they got to his throat, he drowned them with a tequila shot. 

And another one. 

“Ho, ho, ho, hold it right there pretty boy.” The boy said, holding his hand on Iwaizumi's next glass. He extended his other hand. “My name is Satoshi.” 

Iwaizumi slowly reached out and shook his hand. “Iwaizumi.” 

Satoshi turned to the bartender and ordered himself a shot of tequila, noting that Iwaizumi still had one left, two slices of lime, and a salt shaker. Iwaizumi shook his head as the bartender put down the order in front of them, giving them both knowing looks. 

“You are a terrible cliche, Satoshi, you know that?”  
Satoshi was not impressed, he simply raised a single eyebrow and plainly said: “If you don't watch out, I'll make you lick the salt off my dick.” 

At least the bartender was helping someone else; Iwaizumi choked. 

Satoshi leant forward towards him and licked two long, wet stripes of saliva up his neck that caused him to shiver visibly. 

Slightly dazed, Iwaizumi put the salt where Satoshi had left his mark, or, attempted to. The other didn't seem to care and set to work. 

His tongue was hot against his skin and a little rougher than Misaki's, but that was all but a bad thing. 

He took his sweet time but never strayed from the spot where the salt was.  
Iwaizumi was pretty sure he was being given a hickey at this point, and pushed him away. 

Grinning at him, Satoshi took his shot and held the lime out to him. 

Iwaizumi hesitated. 

“Hurry up or my taste buds will perish.” 

Iwaizumi opened his mouth and within less than a second, Satoshi was all over him, making excellent use of the lime excuse. 

He did effectively bite down on it in such a way that the juice flooded both their mouths and Iwaizumi was impressed.  
This boy had practised this. 

Satoshi slowly sucked the juice from his mouth and lips, hands working their way up Iwaizumi's knees and back.  
But Iwaizumi didn't come here to mess around and eventually pushed him away, ignoring the strain in his boxers. 

“Your turn.” 

Satoshi was grinning his mischievous grin again, but Iwaizumi didn't miss the rapid fall and rise of his chest, the flush on his cheeks. 

Instead of leaning forward on his stool, Iwaizumi stood up and in front of him, taller, even when Satoshi was sitting up on a barstool. 

He gently placed his hand on the side of his face, tangling his fingers through the pink locks of hair. He stepped closer, and all seemed soft and sweet until Iwaizumi forcefully pulled Satoshi’s head to the side and held him there while wasting no time working his tongue over his neck. 

Then he stood straight, but held Satoshi in place. He pretended to be very precise and careful with the salt, but they probably both knew it was part of the teasing game. 

Slowly, he got to work. He traced patterns through the melting salt crystals with his tongue and grazed his teeth of the smooth surface of Satoshi's skin, one hand still in his hair, the other on his bare hip, under his shirt, fingers touching and feeling whatever they could find, also under the waist of his skinny jeans. He sucked on his skin until he was sure he'd bruised it. 

It wasn't something Iwaizumi and Misaki did a lot, but that didn't mean Iwaizumi didn't enjoy the idea of Satoshi having to wear a scarf to cover up a hickey because he’d recklessly made out with a stranger in a club and tried to mess with him by playing a stupid game. 

When Satoshi's hips began to stutter under his grip, Iwaizumi pulled away, the taste of salt long gone. 

He dropped his hand but held eye contact with the now shaking boy in front of him while taking his shot. He then picked up the lime and held it in front of Satoshi, who opened his mouth almost immediately, staring at him with his big blue eyes.

“Good boy.” Iwaizumi said, although it probably went unheard because of the loud music. Originally, he wanted to wait for a few seconds before kissing him, but Satoshi was not that patient and since he'd let go of his hair, the boy had free play. 

He grabbed Iwaizumi's collar and pulled him down. As soon as their lips made contact, Iwaizumi could taste the lime and the horrid taste of the tequila was numbed. 

Satoshi was needy and open about it, but Iwaizumi had a hard time pretending he wasn't getting turned on himself. He wanted to touch the boy that was so willingly under him, his body practically begging him to admit that and take him home. 

Hmm… There was someone else he’d want to take home. Someone taller, broader, stronger, maybe even a little rougher. 

His mind unwillingly wandered back to Oikawa, and suddenly it was Oikawa he was kissing. He threaded his fingers through his messy brown hair and touched his cheek, his jawline, his neck. 

He worked the lime into his own mouth and spit it out somewhere into the crowd, not even hearing the disgusted shouts. 

He just wanted to touch him, Oikawa, _his_ Oikawa. His tongue was daring but gentle and his saliva was tasting less like lime juice and more like him, although the alcohol was definitely still there. 

He felt so good and he felt so willing, as if over the past two years their relationship had developed, instead of dissipated. Slowly, Oikawa was pulling back, and Iwaizumi could feel his breath against his lips. 

“Are you all right? You were acting weird.” 

He opened his eyes and it _wasn't_ Oikawa. “Fuck.” He stumbled back, his ankle hitting the barstool quickly, and he held onto it tightly. 

_What is happening to me?_

Was he going mad? Was he already mad? One thing was certain: he was going to need another drink. Or five. Maybe more. 

“Yeah, yeah I'm fine, I'm good, I just need to breathe a bit. You pick the shots this time.” 

Satoshi didn't seem convinced but he also didn't seem to care much (or he was just too drunk to care), so he turned on his stool and ordered four shots of pink vodka. 

“I think it's time we got to know each other a bit more.” Satoshi drummed his fingers on the bar. “Let's play Two Truths And A Lie.” 

When Iwaizumi gave him nothing more than a confused look, he explained the game. “I'll tell you three things about myself, two of them are true, one isn't. You guess which is which. If you guess correctly, I drink, if you don't, you drink. Easy, right?” 

Iwaizumi nodded, the strange feeling in his stomach was slowly fading. 

“You start.” Iwaizumi nodded again, rubbed his hands together, and looked around for inspiration. “I am a law student, I have multiple tattoos and I broke my leg by falling out of a tree when I was six years old.” 

Satoshi frowned, his mouth pinched. “I can _see_ your tattoos, you know.” Iwaizumi playfully raised an eyebrow, a grin forming on his face. “You are not a law student.”  
His grin got broader, and he raised a shot glass. “Wrong.”  
“No way!” 

“Yeah.” 

Satoshi grumpily took the glass from him and emptied it. 

“My turn. My real hair is black, I have two moms and I'm a model.” 

Iwaizumi thought about it. Being gay in Japan was hardly spoken of, so him having two moms and being so openly gay would be quite the miracle. His eyebrows seemed pretty much black but he didn't look like a model at all. He was too short and a little too skinny. 

“I don't believe you're a model.” Satoshi giggled and shook his head. “I get that a lot.” He flicked his hair. “But I am, as a matter of fact, a contracted model, been to Paris, even.” 

He handed Iwaizumi his glass. “Then what's the lie?” Satoshi winked. “I have three moms.” 

Now Iwaizumi was just thrown off. That sounded like straight up bullshit. Also, pink vodka was very sweet. 

“I had two until I was about six years old, but they split up and one found a new girlfriend. The other is single to this day. She's had some relationships, but they never worked out.” 

Silence fell. 

After what felt like a long time, Iwaizumi realised it was his turn. 

“I had my first boyfriend when I was fifteen, my first kiss was with a girl in sixth grade and I had to learn to eat mochi.” Satoshi hardly thought about it. 

“You've never had a boyfriend.” Iwaizumi didn't counter it, or tried to think of something to taunt him, he just picked up the shot glass with the pink liquid and drank.  
It didn't burn like regular vodka did, which was something he missed right now. 

They both glanced at the bar, there was one glass left. “Okay. I want to migrate to Europe, I had my first boyfriend at eight and I don't really like sex.” 

Maybe if it had been real vodka and he was drunk right now, Iwaizumi would've been confused, but he was tipsy and could still somewhat think straight.

“I don't believe you're not into sex.” 

Satoshi shrugged and drank. “If you're not enjoying your sexy time, you've got the wrong partner. Your turn to order drinks.” 

He said it so casually, probably half drunk, that Iwaizumi was thrown off for a moment.  
_If you don't enjoy your sexy time, you've got the wrong partner._  
He snickered at his choice of words, but they still hit home. He ordered five shots of regular Russian vodka, and turned back to his partner of the night. 

“Do you think I don't enjoy sex with my girlfriend? If you don't answer truthfully, you have to drink, if you tell the truth, I have to.” 

Satoshi pushed a shot his way. “I can't speak for your feelings, but I do know you got a raging boner just from snogging me.” 

Iwaizumi downed the vodka and closed his eyes for a moment at how it burned its way down his throat.  
“Have you ever been with a guy? As in, kissing or having sex?” Satoshi’s voice made him open his eyes.  
“Just you.” 

He nodded at the drinks, and Satoshi reluctantly picked it up and drank. He cringed visibly at the taste. 

“I have to say, I'm honoured,” he said, through trying to swallow the vodka, and spat all over Iwaizumi's pants. “Dude!”

For a moment, Iwaizumi was going to get angry, but all he could do was laugh. He laughed and leant with his arm on the bar, feeling the sticky beer on his skin, but not caring enough to remove his arm. 

Satoshi looked at him confused, but he couldn't keep a straight expression for long and soon enough, they were both laughing, leaning towards each other, tears forming in the corners of their eyes.

Iwaizumi was glad they were happy tears this time. He leant back, picked up a shot, threw the contents into his mouth and kissed Satoshi. 

Sharing is caring. 

Satoshi didn't mind sharing, but he still didn't like the taste of vodka, and he flinched. Iwaizumi felt it, and gently placed his hand on his waist. 

For a moment there, it almost felt different. 

Different from how they had met and with hardly any talking, had gone at each other behind a club.  
Different from how Iwaizumi knew this wasn't someone he could ever be with - a boy. 

Except that he knew, deep inside, that he was lying to himself. Part of him wanted to admit that he was just really fucking gay and get everything over with - run to Oikawa.  
Part of him was terrified of what would happen. 

What would his parents say?  
Would they say anything at all?  
They could disown him, easily.  
What would his friends think of him? 

He just couldn't.  
Not now.  
Maybe not ever.  
It felt safer this way. 

Then, Satoshi moaned and his eyes flew open. He paused, breathing heavily. Satoshi's eyes opened and he was looking into huge pools of bright blue. “Iwaizumi I-” 

“IWAIZUMI HAJIME!” Someone pulled him away from Satoshi, and when he looked up, he saw the last person he wanted to see at this moment. 

Misaki. 

She leant forward and grabbed the penultimate shot, drank it and smacked Satoshi in his face within about two seconds. 

“We are going home.” She looked sternly at Iwaizumi. 

There was no discussion here, he was coming with her. He took out his wallet and placed money on the bar, to pay for his drinks, and took the last shot. 

He didn't think, with the alcohol rapidly rising to his head, he pressed Satoshi a business card in his hand that he used for internships, it had his name, phone number and email address on it. 

“I'm sorry.” He whispered, before following a very drunk but not swaying Misaki into the cold night air.

“Misaki, it's not what you think! I swear I was just…” 

What was he just?  
What was he doing?  
Misaki turned around and looked him right in the eye. 

“I don't think anything of it.” 

With that, the conversation was over, there was no discussing what happened, what she had seen, what he had felt, everything ended here.


	7. I Overdosed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is what absolutely no one has been waiting for: more pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, finally, a chapter you guys deserve. It's twelve pages without spacing, twenty-eight with spacing, can you tell I have more time now? Enjoy!

“Do I really need to call on you again, mister Iwaizumi?” 

Iwaizumi jumped up, pushing his phone between his thighs. “No sir.” He looked down at his desk. He was ashamed; he wasn't usually the dreamy kid in class, but lately he had been. 

He'd started talking to Satoshi, and they had a lot to talk about. 

Even Misaki had noted how much he was on his phone. It felt weird, because Satoshi made Iwaizumi say things he never said, made his heart race and his stomach tingle. He was new and everything about him was exciting, from the tiny arrow tattoos on his arm to the piercings he had in… Odd places.  
Not just that, he was exciting to talk to, as well. Even though they were completely different, they got along very well, often having to agree to disagree, though. 

Today was Tuesday, Iwaizumi and Misaki had stayed in and studied over the weekend, while he received photos, videos and texts from a drunk Satoshi who seemed to be living the life. 

His phone vibrated but he ignored it, focusing on his lecture and taking notes. He succeeded for about ten minutes before his curiosity overwhelmed him and he dared to glance down. 

‘Want to hang out tonight?’ 

By now, Iwaizumi knew that that meant they were going out. ‘I'll think about it.’ He went back to his notes, but soon his phone vibrated again. 

‘Aaahw.’ 

Again. 

‘Pleeaaassseeee??’ 

Again.

‘You already declined my previous requests :(‘

He quickly typed out what he was thinking. ‘I have schoolwork to do though.’  
Now, all he did was wait, he didn't even hear his teacher talking anymore. ‘We'll be back on time for you to function properly tomorrow. Deal?’ He sighed. ‘Deal.’

\---------------

They were not going to be back on time for him to function properly tomorrow. 

They were sitting in a circle on the floor in someone's house, together with a lot more people. Girls with purple and blue hair, boys without shirts, one even had a lip piercing. Iwaizumi felt somewhat out of place, although his arms had quite some ink on them. 

They were playing Truth or Dare, which was kind of childish, but these people made it anything but a childish game. 

“Iwaizumi-san, truth or dare?” 

Afraid of the questions that followed from truth, Iwaizumi picked dare. “I dare you to take off your shirt.” 

Definitely not a childish game. 

He sat up, got a hold of the hem of his T-shirt, and pulled it over his head. It was hard to ignore some gasps and a soft “Please don't be gay” from a girl with purple hair in pigtails a few metres away. 

But Iwaizumi only looked over at Satoshi, who had red streaks on his cheeks and who did not meet his eye. 

Good. 

He went on to ask another (obviously gay) boy truth or dare. Truth. 

Iwaizumi crossed his arms and thought for a while. “Tell me what it's like to blow someone.” 

He took a big sip of his drink, and looked at the boy. He had blue streaks in his hair, and wore a silver ring around his index finger. He was turning it at the moment, blushing. 

“Weird?” He licked his lips, and Iwaizumi could almost _see_ him reliving every single time he gave head to someone.

But then, he batted his eyelashes at him, and Iwaizumi nearly _felt_ it. For what felt like ten minutes on end, he held his gaze and imagined it. 

The boy had small, pink lips, shiny with saliva, and his teeth were white when he bit his bottom lip. 

His mouth couldn't have been very big but Iwaizumi was pretty sure that he could take at least ten inches in there without choking. 

“I-I need some air.” 

Iwaizumi scrambled to his feet and dashed to the front door. 

He stood outside, still shirtless, shivering a bit, for a while all alone, until he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. 

Satoshi. 

He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. “That seemed like a pretty intense moment you guys had there.” 

He nodded, feeling Satoshi's hand trailing down his chest. He wasn't sure if the goosebumps were from the touching or from the cold. 

“I almost thought you guys were going upstairs and he was going to suck you off there.” 

Iwaizumi shook his head, not really sure what to say; everything felt like it would come out wrong and he wasn't sure his vocal chords were functioning. 

“I have admit, the thought was kind of a turn-on…” 

Satoshi's hands were on his hips and he pulled him back, against his own body. Then his lips were on his neck and Iwaizumi felt a tremble rip through his spine. 

Satoshi trailed kisses up to his ear, keeping up a quick pace. “I actually wondered what it would be like to take you in my mouth. I mean, you have to carry some inches if that chick stays with you even after seeing me kiss you.” 

He couldn't answer him, he just dropped his head back on Satoshi's shoulder, non-verbally begging him for more, hips inclining against him. 

“Not to mention you shirtless, oh God.” 

His hand was going down his chest, following every line of his muscles, and Iwaizumi buried his fingers into his hair, pink curling around them. “Touch me, Satoshi, Please, touch me.” 

He chuckled. “Really, here? We’re outside, Iwaizumi. I didn't know you could be so naughty.” 

His hand was still going down though, fingertips playing with the waistband of his boxers. Involuntarily, Iwaizumi's body responded by nudging forward, a moan forming in his throat. 

“No, I'd like to take you up to the master bedroom upstairs, sit you down on that king size bed, and take you all the way down my throat.”

Iwaizumi closed his eyes, trying not to let the image take over his mind. 

He failed. 

“Fuck…” 

Satoshi chuckled next to his ear. “You are so sensitive, I can hardly believe you are fucking a girl.” 

At this, Iwaizumi pulled on his hair, hard, bending his neck, and forced him into a kiss. He couldn't care less about hurting him, he just _wanted_ him.  
Every fibre of his being was burning with _need._

Satoshi was grinning through the kiss, his hand slipping between the fabric of Iwaizumi's jeans and boxers, feeling up his hard-on. If he had a reaction to its size, he hid it well. 

The moan that had been stuck since forever slipped from his throat with a whiny tone. “Fuck yes.” Satoshi grinned, pulling away from the kiss, back inside. 

Iwaizumi followed him like a lost puppy. A lost puppy with a growing erection, that is. 

The Truth or Dare circle didn't even notice them as they went upstairs. 

Satoshi opened the doors to what couldn't be anything but the master bedroom, and locked them behind him.  
Suddenly, Iwaizumi felt weird, his heart leapt in his throat and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears.  
His breathing quickened. 

If Satoshi noticed, he ignored it, because he pushed him to the bed that was definitely a king size, and sat him down. He knelt down in front of him, hands working his zipper. 

“For the love of God tell me you've done this before.” He said, eyes flicking up to Iwaizumi. 

“O-of course I have.” Satoshi looked at him with an expression that could only be described as sarcastic. “You look like I'm about to cut your dick off.” 

Iwaizumi let out a breathy, nervous laugh. “Who knows? Maybe that was your intention all along.” 

Satoshi nodded, earning a sigh from Iwaizumi when he worked his boxers down far enough freed his now almost completely hard cock. 

“Yeah, it definitely was.” 

Satoshi's eyes widened, and when he looked up at Iwaizumi, they were almost black. 

Then, holding his gaze, he slowly wrapped his fingers around the base, thumb following up the length. He took the head into his mouth, sucking on it almost too gently. It nevertheless had its effect; Iwaizumi was already gripping at the sheets. 

This was different. 

Different from anything Misaki had ever done. He never got the impression that Misaki enjoyed giving head.  
She loved it when Iwaizumi went down on her, though - and he didn't mind pleasing her at all. 

Satoshi wasn't here to be pleased. Even if he was, it probably came from this, too. He was definitely enjoying it. 

He was moving down, taking his time, tongue following every vein, every twitch of muscle, until the tip of his nose was getting tickled by the dark hair at the very base of his cock. 

“Oh my God,” Iwaizumi breathed, head rolling backwards, even though he wanted to look at Satoshi.  
He wanted to see him take him all the way down his throat, he wanted to see those blue eyes wide and tearing, wanted to see his face get red and flustered and he worked Iwaizumi to his climax. 

He looked back down and wasn't disappointed. Satoshi had closed his eyes, but his head was bobbing up and down, which made him look strangely innocent. Especially when he opened his eyes again and saw Iwaizumi was looking at him, and his cheeks gained colour. 

This was getting really close to perfect. 

Then Satoshi hollowed out his cheeks, tightening his mouth and Iwaizumi was _gone._

He buried his hand into his hair and rolled his hips along with the rhythm, eyes going shut, mouth opening. 

Satoshi wrapped his tongue around his cock, rubbing the soft bottom on it, and Iwaizumi was getting close rapidly. 

“S-s… I'm…” He could hardly breathe, let alone speak. 

Satoshi tilted his head, sliding the bottom of his tongue over his tip and looking at him. That sent him straight over the edge, and he was coming into his mouth in spurts, words on his tongue he couldn't even comprehend. 

There was a name, one that sounded vaguely familiar. 

Tooru. 

But then it was gone again and Iwaizumi was struggling to breathe as Satoshi carefully pulled back.

Next thing he knew, they were back in the circle, and he was feeling a little hazy. 

He emptied his cup to drown out the words bouncing around in his head. 

Tooru, where are you?  I've been feeling so unlike myself and I really, really need my friend back. Tooru, Tooru…

He couldn't help it, every time he closed his eyes, he saw a smile brighter than the sun and a person more beautiful than any landscape one could think of. 

But it wasn't Oikawa's looks that made him feel so strange, it was the warmth he felt deep in his chest when he thought of him. 

The world and every one of his problems seemed so small and futile when he convinced himself that he could be in Oikawa's arms tonight. 

“Satoshi.” 

Satoshi looked up. “I want to visit someone.” His brows furrowed. “Who might that be?” Iwaizumi picked up a bottle of blue liquor also known as Bombay Sapphire gin and filled his cup halfway. 

“An old friend.” 

Two hours and a lot of alcohol later, Iwaizumi was trying to lead the way to Oikawa’s student complex. 

He was swaying and slurring his sentences, pulling Satoshi, who was even drunker than he was, along. 

‘’Say,’’ Satoshi said, leaning on him so heavily, they both fell into a ditch. It was muddy and wet, but they hardly noticed, they just started laughing so hard they woke up a little girl who lived opposite the street. 

She stood up on her bed and peeked through her white lace curtains, and saw two boys lying near the dirty stream her mother always told her to avoid. 

One was very big and wasn’t wearing a shirt or jacket, even though it was quite cold outside, the other was lying on top of him, his upper body shaking with laughter. 

She couldn’t hear their words, but she was glad they were having fun. 

When she saw them getting up, struggling and falling over a few more times, she closed her curtains and went back to bed. 

‘’This guy, did he - did he like - hurt you?’’ 

Satoshi’s words were slurred and it took a while for Iwaizumi to process what he’d said. ‘’No man, I told you, I am the dick in the situation. I broke up with him.’’ 

Breaking up was too strong a word but it had felt like heartbreak. 

He wouldn’t have admitted that to himself unless he was drunk, and he would have to be more than wasted to admit it to Satoshi. 

Broken friendship bonds were more painful than romantic breakups in some cases, he figured. Especially a friendship like the one he and Oikawa had. 

But he had been the one to break contact. He had ignored Oikawa whining in the back of his head.  
He had ignored the spot Oikawa had taken in his heart, let it rot, ignored the aching. 

Instead he had sought out distractions, boxing, Misaki… He had used Misaki to ignore his own feelings, and if that wasn’t top shelf wrong, he wouldn’t know what was. 

Satoshi pawed at his bare torso, drunkenly admiring the toned muscles. ‘’I think,’’ he hiccuped. ‘’I think you should just block him. You got me now.’’ 

Iwaizumi frowned at him, swaying in his steps dangerously left towards the ditch again. 

‘’Nooo, no way. I like him, he’sss my childhood buddy.’’ 

His voice shot up a few notes at the thought of Oikawa, but he was too drunk to notice Satoshi fumbling in his pockets until he pulled out his phone. 

‘’What are you doing?’’ 

Satoshi wobbled slightly on his feet, scrolling through the phone. ‘’I am blocking his number. What’s his name?’’ 

Iwaizumi tried to push him away, but Satoshi held his free arm locked around his waist. ‘’Don’t block my Tooru, you shit, give me the phone.’’ 

He pawed in the air for his phone, but Satoshi turned away. 

‘’Tooru? Oikawa Tooru?’’ 

Iwaizumi’s reddened face said enough. ‘’Yeeaaahhh, Oikawaaaa…. Blocked. He won’t bother you anymore.’’ 

Iwaizumi nearly jumped him, but instead of fighting it, Satoshi handed him the phone, locked. 

‘’You…’’ 

He pushed the phone back into his pocket, he would unblock Oikawa later. 

It was in the middle of the night anyways, he wouldn’t notice. 

\-----------------

He forgot most of that night. 

The following morning, he was sitting at the table with Misaki and a massive, pounding headache.  
The steam of the coffee curled into his face while Misaki was trying to communicate her worries. 

‘’Iwachi, you’ve been going out and getting drunk on weekdays, you’re behind on your studies, and I just feel like I can’t reach you anymore, even when I’m talking to you.’’ 

He looked down. ‘’I’m sorry. It’s… I haven’t been myself lately.’’ 

Misaki sighed. ‘’I noticed that.’’ 

He tried to swallow around the lump in his throat, a familiar sting behind his eyes. ‘’Hana,’’ 

Misaki immediately looked up at the mention of her first name. ‘’Is there anything I could do or be that would make you leave me?’’ 

His voice sounded strange, strangled, he really sounded on the verge of tears. Misaki stood up and sat down next to him. 

She held his face with her hand, it was gentle, warm. 

‘’No, nothing in this world could separate me from you.’’ 

He nodded, leaning into her touch. 

‘’Now, how about I get a bath running and you take a while for yourself and we get really cosy at this table with our textbooks afterwards?’’ He smiled. ‘’That sounds like a great idea.’’

Fifteen minutes later, he lowered himself into the steaming water of the bath, breathing in the peach scent of Misaki’s bath soak. She probably dumped the entire bottle in it, and he really couldn’t care less. 

He looked up at the ceiling, nearly his entire body under water, fingers drumming on the edge of the bath. The heat relaxed his strained muscles and somewhat eased his headache. 

His mind started wandering. 

Saying that he wasn’t himself was an understatement. He felt as if a stranger had entered his body and pushed him to the very edges of his skin, Iwaizumi Hajime remaining in his pores, getting less and less by the second, dissolving into the air. 

He wanted to give Misaki what she deserved and he wanted to study hard, get a degree and a well-paid job.  
He wanted to start a life with Misaki, he wanted to marry her and have children. 

Yet, those ideas tied a rope around his neck and pulled tight, he was suffocating. 

He wanted to run to Satoshi, toss him onto a bed and- no, no that wasn’t true. 

Surely he had kissed him and he had one of the most intense orgasms when Satoshi had blown him but he couldn’t picture them together. 

Something about that boy made him distant, take steps back every time they got close. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it just felt wrong. 

The worst part was: there was no one he could turn to. He didn’t dare to tell Misaki the idea of being with her for the rest of his life felt like getting choked and he couldn’t really talk to Satoshi about anything serious. 

He had already lost a good T-shirt due to him - or at least, that’s what he assumed, because he woke up half naked and his shirt was nowhere to be found. 

He was startled by a knock on the door.

‘’Hey honey, I got you tea, if you like.’’ He sat up, water splashing over the edges. ‘’Yeah, I’d like that a lot.’’  
Misaki handed him a mug.  
‘’Hey Misaki,’’ he chewed his lip, looking up at her. ‘’Thank you.’’ She smiled, a slight hint of pink on her cheeks. ‘’Any time.’’ 

She left, taking some of the steam with her, but none of his painful thoughts. 

\----------------

‘’I AM ON TOP OF THE WORLD!’’  
‘’No, Satoshi, you’re just really high.’’  
‘’SAME FUCKING THING!’’  
‘’Please stop yelling.’’ 

Satoshi straddled him, watching him take a drag from the joint they were sharing. ‘’Why is it that we feel so different when we’re high?’’ 

Iwaizumi shrugged, handing him the joint. ‘’We’re different people.’’

Satoshi closed his eyes, smiling, he opened his eyes and let the smoke roll out from between his lips. 

‘’Ah yes, you’re so smart, Iwaizumi-san.’’ Him using that suffix was a dead giveaway that he was mocking him. 

He rolled his hips as if they were on the dance floor, grinding to a bad remix of a good song. ‘’Satoshi please, I told you, I’m not in the mood.’’ 

Satoshi whined. ‘’But I aaaam.’’ 

Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. ‘’Then jerk yourself off.’’  
Satoshi pulled one shoulder backwards and flicked his hair. ‘’I just might.’’  
He gave him a daring look, working his hand down his pants. 

‘’Oh fuck no, Satoshi, just smoke the weed and get higher, please.’’ He took another drag, and handed the joint back to Iwaizumi. 

Iwaizumi leant his head back against the beanbag he was lying in and closed his eyes as he let the smoke burn in his throat.  
The taste was awful, but if you got high enough, it was dulled. 

In the background, music played, and it was a strangely applicable song.  
Stoned in paradise.

He inhaled deeply, feeling an odd emptiness take over his mind.  
The only thing I feel is pain  
Caused by absence of you.

But he felt nothing, he willed away anything that resembled emotions and drowned himself in alcohol, drugs and a certain boy with pink hair. 

“I thought we were sharing.” 

Satoshi took the joint from him. “Hmm, the only girl I want in my life is Mary Jane.” 

Iwaizumi frowned at him. “What? Is that your mom or something?” 

Satoshi rolled his eyes. “No, it's a street name for marijuana.” 

Iwaizumi stretched his shoulders and moved around until he was more comfortable. “Oh.” 

Satoshi used the smoke to blow his bangs out of his eyes. “It's Friday night, I feel like we should be doing something more exciting than getting high with just the two of us.” 

Iwaizumi was about to answer him when his phone rang. With the necessary and unnecessary struggles, he took it from his pocket, Satoshi whining that he shouldn't, and looked at the number. 

It was a missed call now but it had been Misaki. “I have to call her back.” Satoshi groaned. “Please don't.” For a moment, Iwaizumi considered it. 

A few seconds later, he pressed the phone against his ear. It rang once, twice… 

“Iwachi?” 

He swallowed. 

“Yeah.” 

He heard rustling on the other side of the line and he knew what Misaki looked like right now. 

Sitting at the table, in her favourite red hoodie with soft lining, a cup of hot coffee in her hand, her best friend sitting next to her, gently squeezing her arm, a non-verbal way of saying that she could do this. 

“Iwachi please, come home.” 

The strong girl was gone, she had crumbled, her strength had run out, he had run her out. 

He heard her sniffing and tried not to imagine her wiping at her cheeks with her sleeve, her friend leaning across the table for tissues. 

“I don't know how long I can do this, I… I just want you back. I'm so worried about you, Iwachi.” 

He looked at Satoshi and suddenly felt disgusted of himself, the old Iwaizumi pushing back into his skin and looking at the situation from behind him. 

His stomach twisted until it hurt and the world started going around in loopings. 

_What are you doing, Hajime?_

His own voice resonated in his ear. 

_Why are you doing this to her, to yourself?_

He pinched his eyes closed, trying to control his breathing, will away the sickness rising in his throat. 

He wanted to tell her how he felt, how life felt.  
How every thought that passed through his head was painful, how his self-destructive tendencies were taking shape and forming habits. 

But he couldn’t break her heart and say that he wasn’t the Iwaizumi she met two years ago, the one she had come to know and loved, was gone. 

He didn’t know when or how he was going to get out of the place he was in right now, he just knew that he wouldn’t ever be the same again. 

“You're wrong, Misaki.” 

His eyes flickered between the door a few metres away and the boy in his lap, who was holding the nearly burnt out joint in his hand, wrist tilting in the same direction as his head. 

“There is nothing to worry about.” 

“Hajime please, no, please listen to me-” 

He hung up the phone, turned it to silent and put it back in his pocket.

 

\-------------

 

_Alone._

He felt alone. 

He was alone. 

Misaki had gone to stay with her friend, he didn't need a note to know that. 

Sick, he felt sick of himself. 

He had hurt someone he loved in favour of pleasing himself with someone he hardly knew. Someone who had no interest in him as a person.  
Satoshi only cared about getting drunk and dick. 

That was blunt but it was true, Iwaizumi realised as he sat at the table in his pyjama shorts, with a cigarette and a large mug of tea. 

The tea tasted like smoke but he couldn't find it in himself to care. 

He lost. 

Satoshi won. 

Iwaizumi had lost the one he cared about most, the one who cared about him the most. 

The one person he thought he could share everything with, had proven to pick her own battles, and not his. 

_He_ was her battle now, even though he was fighting his demons with nothing more than a blunt dagger and a dinner plate as a shield. 

And he was bleeding acid. 

Acid that poisoned everyone around him and burned the ground until it was nothing but mush under his feet. 

He was screaming and crying but no one heard anything, no one could do anything - and the only thing he did was silence his vocal chords with a drink at night so he could deal with double the pain the following morning. 

He spent that day regretting every decision he'd ever made and compulsively cleaning his flat. 

Misaki and his flat? 

Their flat? 

He honestly didn't know. 

He didn't hear from anyone. 

Not from Misaki, not from Satoshi, not from… 

“That's actually really odd.” 

He picked up his phone and opened Oikawa's chat. 

“What..?” 

He mumbled to himself when realising that Oikawa's number had, in fact, been blocked.  
He unblocked it immediately and spent the rest of his day hoping to receive a text from Oikawa, thinking about Oikawa again, and trying his hardest not to. 

He tried to vacuum the memories of their past away, scrubbed at the floor in an attempt to not imagine what it would be like to kiss him the way he had kissed Misaki and Satoshi.

He loaded the dishwasher, did the laundry, thinking of his eyes, his smile, the warm embraces they had shared occasionally. 

And as he stuffed the washing machine with black clothes, - including Misaki’s black dress that she spilled a cocktail on, he saw now - he was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling. 

A feeling he didn’t recognise, but his chest felt healed again from the consuming hole that had been bitten into it, and his heart beat with a new kind of energy, he felt like himself again. 

At the end of the day, he sat down at the table with a glass of home-made lemonade and a slice of cake - also home-made, Iwaizumi was secretly a bit of a housewife, after all -  and turned on the radio, exhausted.

Of course, it was exactly at that time that the radio dj had to play a song that perfectly matched the feelings he was so desperately trying to hide. 

Hold on to me, ‘cause I’m a little unsteady. 

‘’I fucked up.’’ he whispered at his own reflection in his glass. He wanted to ask someone for help, but he didn’t know how. 

Misaki had always been easy to talk to, but he knew better than to call her now. 

Something inside of him desperately wanted to talk to Oikawa. 

That something was triumphed by a new feeling: inferiority. He couldn’t deem himself worthy of talking to him. 

Oikawa, who had found a study he loved that would lead him to a profession he would practise with his amazing bright smile on his face. 

Oikawa, who was surrounded by friends and people who cared about him, who wanted only the best for him. 

Oikawa, who probably knew how to drink responsibly and who to trust, instead of swallowing drink after drink until he could only see in a haze and grabbed anyone nearby and willing. 

He didn’t know who to call, so he called the person of whom he knew that they would love him unconditionally. 

‘’Hey mom.’’  

‘’Hey sweetie. How are you?’’ 

His lip started trembling before he could stop himself. ‘’Not so good, mom.’’ He paused, trying to keep his breathing on track. ‘’I messed up.’’ 

He attempted one more time to get ahold of himself, but eventually he just gave up and _broke._

‘’I lost everyone I cared about most.’’  
‘’Oh sweetie. Tell me what happened.’’ 

There were tears running down his face, but he didn’t feel like giving a damn about them right now. ‘’I… I think I lost myself a bit.’’ He sniffed. ‘’Maybe that’s an understatement.’’ 

‘’Baby, are you crying? Should I come over?’’ He shook his head. 

‘’No, no it’s okay, I just want to talk to you right now.’’  
‘’Okay.’’ 

She didn’t say anything else, or ask him anything. Iwaizumi liked that about his mother, she just waited until you were ready to talk. 

‘’You remember Oikawa Tooru, right?’’  
‘’Yes, lovely boy. How is he?’’  
‘’Well, that’s kind of the thing. Since we went to different schools we just sort of… lost contact.’’  
‘’Oh, that’s a shame.’’  
‘’We met each other two weeks ago and hung out, though, it was fun. There were some teammates too, from the volleyball team. But I haven’t heard from him since, and he hasn’t heard from me either.’’  
‘’Is that bad? Two weeks is not that long.’’  
‘’It’s not but… Things have happened to me in those weeks. I did things and I-I made some bad choices.’’ 

He choked on an inhale, and fully burst out crying. 

Tears were running down his cheeks in rivers, his breathing was either non-existent or extremely rapid.  
For a moment, the whole world caved in and he couldn’t do anything but sit there and cry. 

He heard sniffling on the other side of the line and realised his mother had started crying too. 

‘’Mom don’t cry.’’  
‘’You know I can’t help it, if my boy cries, I cry.’’ 

So, for a minute, they cried together, and it almost seemed as if his mother was sitting there beside him, rubbing his back, holding his hand, handing him her handkerchief to dry his eyes and blow his nose. Kissing his head to say that it was okay, that it was going to be okay. 

‘’Misaki left me. I made her leave me. I drove her away because she couldn’t talk to me. I was a terrible boyfriend to her. I have been a terrible person for these past two weeks and I am afraid… I’m so scared mom.’’ 

There was a short silence in which he breathed in, and his mother said that whatever he was going to say, she was willing to listen, willing to accept whatever it was. 

She said that without even opening her mouth, and in that moment, Iwaizumi knew. 

‘’I think… I think I’m not in love with Misaki anymore, I don’t think I’ve ever been. I… I don’t think I can love girls…’’ 

His mother smiled, a kind, soft smile. It was his favourite smile in the world, save for one. 

‘’I think I knew it all this time, mom, but I just - I just couldn’t admit it, not to myself or to you or to Tooru, or Misaki…’’ 

His voice trailed off, and he listened to the silence. 

‘’Sweetie, your father and I will always love you, no matter who your heart loves.’’ 

It didn’t help to stop the tears.

Momma  
Come here  
Approach  
Appear  
Daddy  
I'm alone  
'Cause this house don't feel like home

If you love me  
Don't let go

\------------

‘’Power hour. The rules are simple: we have one hour to finish sixty shots of beer.’’ 

A boy with chestnut hair and green coloured contacts said, grinning, phone in hand. ‘’I have an app right here, which makes it really easy.’’ 

Iwaizumi swallowed. 

He wished he didn't have time to wonder if this was a good idea, but he did, and the answer was a definitive _no._

“And what if you don't finish those sixty shots?” Someone else asked, but Iwaizumi didn't bother to look at them.  
The boy with chestnut hair shrugged. 

“Then you don't, and you lose. I don't know about you guys, but I don't like losing, so…” 

He tapped his fingers on the bar in what seemed like a regular rhythm. Iwaizumi studied him, he had trained arms, but his legs didn't look as muscular.  
When he strained his eyes through the dim light and found a small tattoo of a music note in the boy’s neck. 

A drummer.  
He was pretty cute, Iwaizumi thought to himself.

“Oh dear, sorry I'm late! Hope you haven't started without me!” Satoshi stormed into their circle and flopped down onto a stool, dropping a satchel to the floor. 

“Fear of missing out much.” The chestnut boy raised a single eyebrow at him, but grinned. 

Satoshi grinned back, leaned forward and kissed him. 

“Hey babe.” He said, flirtatiously biting his lip, still smiling.  
“Hey pretty boy.” 

Iwaizumi's heart sank. 

_You had a boyfriend, all this time?_

His breathing got faster, shallow. 

_But you… You kissed me. You…_

He looked at Satoshi, at the other boy, over and over.  
Satoshi saw him, looked him right in the eyes and _smiled._

Something filled him, it set his chest on fire, burned in his lungs.  
He wanted to grab Satoshi by the collar and throw him across the bar, or smash a few bottles of Malibu on his head. 

Or both.  
Instead, he held his gaze, reached out, picked up a shot of beer, and held it up for a toast. 

“Let's get this game started.” 

No one protested. 

The first hour was easy.  
The first twenty shots went well.  
The following ten went even better, because he started to get hazy and lose feelings in his body.  
At forty, he started to grow tired of the taste of lukewarm beer without the carbon dioxide in it.  
At fifty, he felt a little sick. 

He kept going. 

He made it to sixty and he wasn't exactly drunk, but he wasn't feeling well either. 

“Excuse me,” he said and stood up, making his way to the toilets.  
He hardly made it into a stall before throwing up. 

When he staggered back, he turned around and looked into two big, blue eyes. 

“Did I anger you?” 

His voice was sly, smooth, and completely saturated with alcohol. Satoshi was drunk, or at least pretty close. 

“After our lovely times together, you realise I have a boyfriend. Had him all this time! I _cheated_ on him, with _you._ And guess what? You're no better! You cheated on your lovely girlfriend with _me._ She left you, didn't she? That's why you're here, playing this _stupid_ game with all these _stupid_ people. Because you're all alone.” 

Iwaizumi looked at him, silent.  
He told himself to keep on breathing.  
He counted to ten. 

Fifteen.

He kept on looking in his eyes.  
And then he saw it. 

“But you're the same.”

He gently pushed past Satoshi and went back inside.

‘’Let’s do a second round.’’ 

He said, sitting back down on his stool, eyes on the chestnut boy. ‘’No beer this time though.’’ 

People were grinning, people were looking shocked. The chestnut boy looked… Interested. 

‘’All right big boy, what’s it going to be?’’ 

Iwaizumi eyed Satoshi, who was just sitting down again. ‘’Vodka.’’ Satoshi looked at him, blue eyes widening. 

‘’Sixty shots of vodka? That sounds like suicide.’’ Another boy spoke up, he looked like a simple person; his haircut was simple, his clothes were plain, he had no visible piercings or tattoos.  
He looked normal, out of place, almost. 

‘’It is, so we’ll do one shot every five minutes.’’ 

Because that was only semi-suicide.

The drinks were ordered and divided, the timer was set and so the game started. 

Thirty minutes later, everyone was doubled over over a stupid story someone was telling. Everything was funnier when you were drunk. 

Or very drunk, for the smaller people. 

Twenty minutes after that, everyone was laughing because they were trying to perform a ‘’are you drunk’’ test someone had picked up from the internet, and no one was passing. 

Chestnut boy tried to walk in a straight line, but walked straight into a girl in a red dress instead. 

‘’Okay now,’’ a very fake blonde girl said, ‘’I will touch my nose without any problems.’’ 

She giggled at the word ‘nose’, which wasn’t very convincing. 

She tried though, and stabbed herself in the eye. 

She fell on the simple boy laughing, who, in turn, also fell over. 

They landed on the floor together, laughing hysterically, and the only thing people could do, was laugh along. 

‘’Hey, you wanna play the penis ga-’’ 

The alarm went off, and everyone had to scramble to their feet and take a shot. 

Five shots down, one to go. ‘’As I was saying…’’ The girl tilted her head, looking at the ceiling in confusion. ‘’What was I saying?’’ 

She threw up six minutes later, the simple boy went with her to the bathroom and was either holding back her hair, or throwing up as well. 

Or both. 

‘’You know,’’ Iwaizumi was slurring. ‘’I never got your name.’’ 

He pointed at the chestnut boy. 

‘’Oh, right.’’ The boy said. 

His voice was higher than it was when the night started, he was hiccuping. 

‘’My name is Hunichi.’’ 

He held out his hand in Iwaizumi’s direction, but even if he’d tried, they would not have been able to shake hands. 

‘’I bet you’re obedient to Satoshi.’’ 

Hunichi frowned. ‘’Your name, it means ‘’obedient one’’, doesn’t it?’’ Hunichi nodded. 

Iwaizumi stepped closer to him, putting an arm around his waist. ‘’And I bet you are _very_ obedient to Satoshi.’’ 

In his arm, he felt the boy starting to tremble. 

‘’Well guess what,’’ he leaned down. ‘’Satoshi was very obedient to me when he put his pretty little mouth around my dick.’’ 

Hunichi’s mouth fell open, he turned to look at Satoshi. 

‘’He… He what?’’ 

Iwaizumi smiled. 

‘’Your boyfriend here sucked my cock like his life depended on it.’’ 

Now _he_ was shuddering. ‘’Oh yes, I remember that very well, he was just starving for it.’’ 

‘’You mother _fucker_.’’ 

Satoshi walked towards them, swaying in his steps, vaguely pointing a finger at Iwaizumi, but actually indicating the bartender, who just looked really confused. 

‘’What is it, honey? Did you not want him to know that? Why? Did your mommy never teach you to be honest and respectful towards your partner?’’ 

_Hajime, I can’t say I understand what you are going through, but I want you to remember this one important thing: no matter who your partner is, you must always treat them with care and respect. You must always be honest to them._

‘’You leave my fucking mom out of this!’’ 

Satoshi swung himself at them, and Iwaizumi pushed Hunichi aside.  
He stumbled back, tripped over his own feet and fell, but at least his boyfriend didn’t plunge his fist at him. 

Iwaizumi caught that fist with his side, and it was a painful punch. 

Drunk people had no inhibitions. 

‘’You go from practically begging me to fuck you to hitting me in the span of three days, that doesn’t sound good, Satoshi.’’ 

Satoshi wiped at his nose with his hand. 

‘’As if you’re one to talk, ‘Touch me, touch me’, you were begging !’’ 

Ouch. 

That hurt more than the punch. 

What hurt more was that Iwaizumi realised he liked the idea of Satoshi touching him, even through all of this.  
Even though he had a boyfriend, even though he was violent right now, part of him still wanted him. 

But then he realised something else. 

He didn’t want Satoshi, he didn’t want his excessive alcohol use, he didn’t want his drugs, he just wanted validation, from _someone_. 

That realisation didn’t stop him from punching the guy in the face though. 

He pulled back his arm, and struck him in the jaw. 

He hit him again, on his nose. 

Then, he kicked his knee, his shin, he knocked him to the ground. 

He took a step back, but Satoshi got up and launched himself at him. 

He grabbed him by the throat and kicked at everything he could find, bit his arm, scratched at his face. 

Iwaizumi plunged to the floor, planning to land his entire weight on Satoshi, but the Hunichi stepped forward and grabbed Satoshi’s arm, turning them mid-fall and dropping Iwaizumi face-first to the dirty wooden floor. 

A second later Iwaizumi was back up again, blood running from his nose, ready to fight some more.

He was grabbed from behind by two strong arms and pulled back, away from Satoshi and Hunichi. 

He kicked, screamed and flailed his arms until someone elbowed him sharply in his ribs. 

‘’Was that really necessary?’’ A sharp voice called, and everything went blurry. 

He saw a small figure approaching him and his first thought was that this was another guy, someone who had come to beat him to a pulp while he was restrained, but the only thing he felt when the person struck him was a warm hand on his cheek. 

‘’Get him to the back.’’ 

It was that sharp voice again, but softer this time, kinder. 

He was dragged by the one holding him until a low voice above him spoke. ‘’I know you aren’t unconscious, so you might as well try and make this easier for me by imitating a walking motion.’’ 

He didn’t really understand what the voice meant, but he figured he had to walk, so he did. 

He obeyed. 

How ironic. 

A door opened and there was darkness, he was set down somewhere, but not on a chair and whatever it was, it was hard. 

Suddenly, there was a lot of light. His vision stayed fuzzy.  
He saw a big figure disappear, and the small one appear. 

The figure got closer until they were next to him, so close he could feel their body warmth.  
It had something pleasant and he felt the strange tendency to get closer, cuddle this person really close. 

‘’You are a stupid, stupid boy.’’ 

The voice was sharp again. 

‘’You’re lucky we aren’t calling the police.’’ 

There was more noise he couldn’t make anything of, and then the voice again, a little less sharp. ‘’Thank you.’’ 

He heard a click and some rustling, and then a sting on his nose. 

He hissed and flinched.

‘’Oh come on, big boy like you can handle some grandma treating his nose.’’ 

He stayed still as the grandma pushed something soft against his nose. ‘’I don’t think it’s broken. You are also a lucky boy, you have strong bones.’’ 

There was more rustling and he was vaguely aware of someone touching painful spots on his body, putting cold things there. 

He closed his eyes. 

It was nice. 

‘’Now,’’ the grandma was close to his face and he opened his eyes, his vision clearing. 

He could see her dark tan skin, the many wrinkles on her face, her grey hair falling into her face. 

She was, in a strange way, beautiful. 

Maybe one day she had been pretty, but not anymore. 

She was beautiful though, in a way Misaki was, a good person. 

‘’Who do I call for you? Your mom? Your friend?’’ 

Iwaizumi shook his head, petting himself for his phone. He found it in his pocket, still in one piece, luckily. 

‘’My… My…’’ 

He didn’t know a name for it.  
He wasn’t even sure if it existed.  
Maybe his feelings wavered in an unnamed land. 

_I don’t know how this works for boys but I think I know how it works for my boy, I can see it when you love someone, Hajime. Because I see it when you look at me, and when you look at your sister, and your father._  
You know where else I saw it? When you looked at that Tooru. I guess I had trouble admitting it too, because we speak so little about it, but love is not something you have control over.  
You love who you love, you don’t get to choose who that is, what they look like, or what sex they are. Love is still love. And I think, my dear, that you love very truly and honestly, more powerful than you think you do. So I suggest you go find Tooru again and love him, because I also think he loves you. 

Or maybe he should start listening to his mother.  
He smiled.  
Maybe he should have done that a long time ago. 

‘’Tooru.’’ 

He handed the grandma his phone with Oikawa’s contact open. ‘’Very well.’’ She said, and pressed the call button. 

‘’Hello? Is this Tooru? No, he is not exactly okay, but he’s alive. I think he wants to see you.’’ 

It took long, too long, for Oikawa to arrive. 

Iwaizumi convinced himself multiple times he wasn’t coming, and that he was going to die on the floor in the back of a bar. 

Then he remembered he was only drunk and that he probably wouldn’t die, he would just get a terrible hangover. 

Oh, he was going to regret tonight, and he was going to live for the rest of his life with all of the consequences. 

He chewed his lip, the second joint of his index finger, the inside of his cheek, anything he could find. 

The grandma lady brought him multiple glasses of water that he all emptied within seconds. She also brought him an aspirin. ‘’You will thank me later.’’ 

He looked at her, choking out a self-deprecating chuckle.

‘’Look,’’ he gestured at the floor he was sitting on. ‘’Concrete. I have officially hit rock bottom.’’ 

At first it didn’t seem like she responded, she just turned her head away, but he saw the ghost of a smile on her face.  
She reminded him of his mother. ‘’I really have been stupid.’’ 

He sighed, remembering his mom’s words. _Are you sure you don’t want me to come over? You can come here, too, I’m sure your sister would love to see you again._

No mom, he’d said. It’s fine. He had said that so many times, even though it wasn’t always true. 

He should have gone home, should have let his mother come over, then all of this wouldn’t have happened.  
He would be sleeping right now, in the bed he used to share with Misaki. Maybe he would have fixed things with Misaki, they would have decided together that they weren’t right for each other and gone their separate ways. 

_She is a good girl, a good person, and she doesn’t deserve to be disrespected, so if you are certain you need to end your relationship with her, do it respectfully._  
Maybe that was one promise he could keep. 

 

‘’Iwaizumi?’’ 

A strange feeling took over his mind, his body, and Iwaizumi cracked a smile. ‘’Yo.’’ 

Oikawa _screeched_. 

‘’IWA-CHAN!’’ 

He was on his knees in front of him, grabbing at his face, his hand, his arms, and his fingers left little sparks in their wake. 

‘’You dumbass! What did you do? You stupid, stupid Iwa-chan! You could have gotten into jail!’’ 

Iwaizumi avoided his eyes, guilt creeping up on him. 

He’d been incredibly stupid, and Oikawa was right, he could have gotten into jail. 

And he wouldn’t have gotten out of there any time soon, considering he was the one that was the most aggressive in the fight. 

But he was glad, he was so, so glad that Oikawa was here. 

He wanted to touch him, not in a sexual way, he wanted to hold his face between his hands and squeeze his cheeks, ruffle the mess he called hair. 

And he really, desperately wanted to hug him. 

Instead, he smiled softly, eyes on the floor. ‘’I know.’’

He woke up the next morning with the worst headache in world history and a rabbit on his chest, sniffling at his face. He was glad he didn’t shoot up, because it certainly would have gone flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first song mentioned is Stolen Dance, by Milky Chance (that rhyme though), the second is Unsteady, by X Ambassadors. DanceOn has an amazing choreography for it, I definitely recommend checking it out, it's a perfect non-verbal presentation of Oikawa and Iwaizumi's relationship in this fic ;)


	8. I'm Just Too Afraid That I'll Be Wrong

‘’Holy shit.’’ 

‘’Good morning to you too.’’ 

He was greeted by a two chocolate eyes, peeking above the mattress. He lied speechless as Oikawa sat up and picked up the bunny. “This is Inu!”  
Oikawa was hugging the bunny to his chest, letting it sniff at his face and neck. 

“You named your rabbit ‘Dog’.” 

Oikawa pouted. “It sounds worse when you say it like that. How is the hangover by the way?” Iwaizumi sighed. “I think I'm going to die.” 

Oikawa grinned. “Dramatic as always. Come on, I'll make you breakfast.” 

He stood up, putting down the rabbit, and reached his hand out to Iwaizumi, who took it, heart pounding in his throat. When he stood up, the world turned a few times and he felt at least twice as nauseated as when he woke up. 

‘’Toilet…’’ He squeaked, and Oikawa immediately led him. They made it in time, luckily; he was in no condition to clean up vomit and he really didn’t want to make Oikawa do it. 

Oikawa sat quietly next to him as he hunched over the toilet, puking his guts out. He didn’t have the attention to pay him any mind, but if he did, he may have seen the look in his eyes, the ghost of a smile on his face, as his arm lay over his pulled up knee.  
Something that said more than words possibly could, a feeling, spread over his body, only visible to a keen vision. 

When Iwaizumi pulled back, he smiled and softly said: ‘’Welcome back.’’ 

Iwaizumi looked at him, eyes growing wide, the rest of his face unmoving. 

His body started shaking, and a new wave of nausea washed over him, causing him to gag, even though nothing came up.  
Oikawa chuckled into his hand. ‘’Rude.’’ 

‘’I don’t think I could be anything but rude at the moment.’’ 

Iwaizumi didn’t show his face, instead, he laid his head into his arm, which was drawn over the toilet seat, the shaking slowly faded away. 

‘’Aaahw.’’ 

Oikawa rubbed his back, and it felt strange… ly good. 

‘’I’ll get you some water and make breakfast, you come into the kitchen whenever you’re ready.’’ As he stood up, his touch disappeared, but the feeling lingered, his fingertips leaving little sparks in their wake. 

If Iwaizumi remembered more from last night, he might have remembered that too, but he hardly remembered anything after the fight.  
The smells of alcohol and stomach acid were stinging his nose, so he flushed.  
He stayed where he was though, just in case. 

Oikawa quickly returned with a large glass of water that he set down before him. ‘’Free refills.’’ He winked, and something in Iwaizumi’s chest fluttered, a funny feeling going through his legs. 

Oikawa left, even though he wanted to tell him to stay with him, on the dirty rug on the bathroom floor.  
He wanted to hold him, feel his warmth, tease him about his awful looking hair, breathe in his scent. 

But no words formed and he was left alone with his godawful thoughts. 

_‘’Say, mom, how did dad do it, confess to you?’’ She giggled, blushing a little at the memory. ‘’He wanted to ask me out in private, but my friends came by mid-sentence and he started stuttering terribly. It was adorable, also because my friends knew I liked him a lot.’’_

When he’d finished his glass, refilled it, drank it, and didn’t feel wobbly anymore, he stepped out of the bathroom and followed the hallway to find the kitchen. He did, and he found something else. 

Oikawa, with his hair tied up, swinging his hips to music while chopping fruits. He didn't dare disturb him and sat down at the table, watching. Oikawa started humming and he swore his heart did a backflip. 

‘’Morning,’’ a tired boy in the door opening of the kitchen said. He was accompanied by a slightly taller, well-built other male. 

The first one, the one with the grey hair - Iwaizumi wondered if he dyed it - looked at him, and his mouth fell open. 

‘’You’ve got company.’’ 

Iwaizumi recognised them, but he couldn’t remember their names or where he knew them from. 

‘’Morning Suga, Daichi.’’ 

Before he could rack his pounding and dehydrated brain over it, Oikawa already turned and pointed at them with his knife, apparently ignoring the comment. 

‘’That is Sugawara and Daichi from Karasuno. Remember them?’’ Iwaizumi nodded. 

He remembered beating their asses, only to get his ass beaten. ‘’Suga, Daichi, this is Iwaizumi. Don’t you remember him?’’ 

Sugawara grinned. 

‘’Is _this_ your Iwa-chan? Well, I gotta give it to you, Oikawa, you have good taste.’’ 

Iwaizumi frowned.  
Had they talked about him?  
And what was it with taste? 

“Suga, you have seen him before.” 

Oikawa's ears were getting red, and Iwaizumi really didn't understand what was happening. Maybe it was because of the headache, the sickness in his stomach or the pain he seemed to have all over his body. “He ages well.” 

The blush crawled onto Oikawa's face and he threw a towel at Sugawara. 

“YOU-!” 

The other only giggled, catching the towel and tossing it onto the counter. 

“What are you preparing?” Daichi’s eyes switched rapidly between the three boys around him and tried to distract them by changing the subject. 

“Misou soup and some fruit. Iwaizumi had a rough night.”  
Daichi walked over to Oikawa, while Sugawara sat down in front of Iwaizumi. 

“So…” 

Iwaizumi expected some kind of interview, tons of questions about him and Oikawa, his life, his school, what the hell he was doing here, but instead Sugawara hit him with just about the last thing he expected: “Do you still play?” 

For a moment, he was confused. “Play what?” He mumbled, looking down at the table top. 

“Volleyball of course!” 

A cup came into his view and he looked up, suddenly face to face with Oikawa. Heat coiled in his body, spreading from his core to his legs, until it tingles his fingers. “Peppermint tea, eases the stomach.” 

He smiled and it was… The most beautiful thing Iwaizumi had seen in years. Two years, actually. Before that, he got to see that smile on a regular basis, mostly when they were in private, but that was often enough.  
He couldn't understand that he'd forgotten about it, that he'd instead remembered the poachy one he used in public. This one reached his eyes and made them sparkle on a whole new level. 

All he could do was stare and stutter out a thank you that was probably incomprehensible. Then Oikawa was gone again and he found himself looking at empty space. 

‘’Do you?’’ 

He blinked, attention somewhat going back to Sugawara. ‘’No,’’ he looked down at his cup, holding it tightly, ‘’I do box if I’m feeling like it, though.’’ 

Sugawara’s eyes flickered over him, a smile pulling at his lips. ‘’You seem to feel like that a lot.’’ 

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no words came out, so he closed it again, looking back down at his tea. He wished it was cold enough to drink so he would have an excuse to be as quiet as he was. 

‘’Koushi! Are you checking out Iwaizumi-san?’’ 

Daichi had walked to the table and was leaning over Sugawara.  
Iwaizumi tried to say that they could just call him ‘’Iwaizumi’’, but he could not get between their conversation. 

‘’Is that a bad thing? You know I like you the best. Besides, he is out of my league.’’  
‘’Are you insulting me?’’  
‘’What? No! You are the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on!’’ 

Daichi started to walk away, but Sugawara was soon upon him, arms around his neck, clinging to his body. ‘’Babe.’’

‘’Don’t you ‘babe’ me right now.’’  
‘’Baaaaaaaabeeee. Come oooonnn, you know I love you! Don’t be such a little…’’ 

Daichi turned his head, looking unconvinced. ‘’Prove it.’’ Sugawara’s mouth fell open. ‘’Not in front of the children!’’ 

Now Oikawa was insulted.

‘’You are hardly a month older!’’ 

With a deep sigh, Oikawa walked to Iwaizumi, two bowls in his hands. He set them down, sitting at the head of the table, not quite next to him. ‘’Before you ask, yes, they are always like this.’’ 

Oikawa stirred his soup with his chopsticks, giving Iwaizumi a soft smile from the side. Iwaizumi’s knees went weak. 

‘’Are they… Uhm…’’  
He didn’t say the word, couldn’t get it out of his throat. ‘’Dating? Since like six months after they met.’’ 

Something about Oikawa was soothing at this moment. He was calm, gentle, he was - Iwaizumi hated how often he thought of this word by now - warm.  
He wanted to push his face into the exposed skin of his neck and lay there, until his problems solved themselves. 

Sadly, this ultimately meant that he would have to solve himself, for he was all of his problems when it came down to it. 

They ate for a while in silence, Iwaizumi’s body thanking Oikawa for his cooking; he needed the water and vitamins from the soup badly. 

‘’Are you, uhm…’’ 

He fiddled with his hands, unsure if he could even ask this. Unsure if he really wanted to hear the answer. 

‘’Dating anyone? No.’’ 

Again, Oikawa finished his sentence, at least pretending not to notice how awkward Iwaizumi was feeling. He was glad for that. 

By the time they were halfway through their bowls, Sugawara and Daichi returned from the hallway, now silently leaning on each other. ‘’Oh! Soup! Thank you Oikawa.’’ 

They both went to get themselves a bowl while Oikawa shot Sugawara a dirty look. When they sat down, they sat close and their eyes had a look in them that Iwaizumi had only ever seen when his parents looked at each other.  
Daichi leaned to Sugawara, who pushed him away, scrunching his lips.

‘’Nah-ah, I am not kissing you when you haven’t eaten. Go annoy someone else with your nasty morning breath.’’ Daichi pouted. ‘’You seemed fine with kissing me just a minute ago…’’  
‘’I didn’t actually kiss you, though.’’ 

Iwaizumi watched their interactions, his chest contracting with a known feeling. 

_Misaki and I were like this at the start…_  
But they never looked at each other like that. Maybe Misaki looked at him that way, but he knew that he’d never returned it. 

He buried his face in his hands, the countless ways in which he’d hurt Misaki before he went batshit crazy two weeks ago were not something he wanted to think about right now. 

‘’Hey, tattoos!’’ 

Sugawara pointed at his arm. ‘’Oh, yeah…’’ Iwaizumi looked down at his arm and… ‘’Why am I not wearing pants?’’ 

A chuckle went around the table and how had he not noticed he wasn’t wearing pants? Was he really that hung over? God. ‘’You had booze all over them so I took the courtesy of washing them, the drier should be done in half an hour or so.’’ 

Silence fell, and in it, the muscles in Iwaizumi's knees awkwardly flexed and unflexed. 

“So what do they mean?”  
Sugawara was leaning his head in his hand, softly smiling. “What? Oh my-my tattoos… Ehm…” 

His heart was racing and his fingers started to tremble - the pounding headache didn't help either. “Well, I have an arrow, with a diamond head which stands for strength…” 

He lifted his left arm to show the probably cheesy but good-looking arrow pointing down at his elbow. 

“And the kanji for “one” on my wrist,” he tapped at the top of his left wrist. “Which can also be read as 'Hajime’.” 

He rolled up the sleeve to partially expose his masterpiece.

“And a wing on my shoulder, but it starts on my shoulder blade, which I can't show you right now.” 

He was on a roll now, getting more comfortable and glad to be talking about something other than people's love lives and his terrible decisions of the past fortnight. 

“And I have six flowers here, all with different meanings.” 

He laid his right arm down on the table, pointing at the pieces that went from halfway his bicep to his lower arm. 

“I’m just going to tell you about them in order. First, there’s the day lily, which means ‘love is reciprocated’, I got this on the one-year anniversary with my girlfriend, she hated it.” 

He chuckled at the memory, the exchanged glances between Daichi and Suga went unnoticed.  
But Oikawa saw the flash of sadness in Iwaizumi’s eyes, noticed the quick breath he took.

‘’Then there’s the Azalea, meaning ‘take care’. Sakura, you all know this one. It has a lot of meanings, actually. It means ‘’a good education’’, but also gentle- and kindness.’’ 

He moved his finger to the next flower. ‘’This is the plumeria, which ironically stands for spring, a meaning I would have expected with sakura. It also means ‘new beginnings’, this was my first flower tattoo, I got it not long after leaving high school. Oikawa was there, actually, because my parents would never have approved.’’ 

They looked at each other, reliving the memory for a moment. Oikawa had constantly asked if it hurt, and Iwaizumi had constantly said no, refraining from hitting him because it would probably mess up the tattoo. ‘’It was my first tattoo, actually.’’ 

Daichi pointed at the last flower, the one with the most layers, and the strangest meaning. ‘’What about that one?’’ Iwaizumi smiled to himself. 

‘’That’s a cactus flower, I got it not too long ago - had some money and wanted another tattoo. I just picked this one because I thought it looked nice, but it stands for ‘lust’, I only found out later.’’ 

Sugawara giggled. ‘’It is a very pretty one.’’ Oikawa said, and Daichi agreed with him. He’d finished, and Oikawa got up, walked to the kitchen, and returned with a large bowl and four forks. “I forgot about the fruit salad.” 

He smiled, eyes on Iwaizumi. “Will help to restore the vitamins you're missing.” 

They ate for a while until Iwaizumi realised he'd left out one last tattoo. Although, he wasn't sure if he wanted to show it to them. He silently decided against it and just ate his fruits, which tasted really good, by the way. 

 

“So… How are you?” 

He looked up, finding chocolate eyes surrounded by chocolate strands of hair, looking right at him. 

He avoided them. 

They were in Oikawa's room, Iwaizumi sitting on the bed, Oikawa on the floor, holding his dog-bunny to his chest. 

Dog-bunny. 

Dog bun. 

His rabbit was basically a hot dog. 

“I…”  
“Don't lie to me.” Oikawa's eyes were stern, his body tense. Iwaizumi choked out a chuckle. “Why would I-” 

“I don't care _why_ , I just need you to _not.”_

Iwaizumi decided it wasn't a good time to correct his grammar. He sighed, looking down at his fiddling fingers. At least he had his pants back now. 

“Not so great.” 

He glanced up and found Oikawa's gaze still on his, sharper than a knife. “That's an understatement, I guess.” He mumbled, going back to his hands. He had to clip his nails. 

“I would guess that too, considering I had to come pick you up at three fucking am last night.” 

He flinched, wanting to open his mouth to say something, wanting to apologise, wanting to collapse onto him and his stupidly adorable hotdog and hug him until the pain was gone. 

“I didn't hear from your for two weeks, you _blocked_ me, I was worried sick, Iwaizumi! Where have you been?” 

“Iwa-chan.” 

“What?” 

“You haven't called me 'Iwa-chan’, not once, since we met in the grocery store.”  
His voice was soft, trembling like the tendons in his knees. 

“Thrice. I called you 'Iwa-chan’ twice last night, and once in the store. I-I… I was scared…” 

Now it was Oikawa's turn to look away, while Iwaizumi tried to find his eyes, read his face. 

“You… I hadn't seen you in so long and I was afraid… You wouldn't like me anymore.” 

It was impulsive, and maybe it was stupid, but he would never regret it. 

Iwaizumi jumped forward, landed on the floor in front of Oikawa - thankfully chasing away the rabbit, and took his dumb face between his hands, running his thumb over Oikawa's cheek. 

“Listen up, you dumbass. Since we got separated two years ago, not a day has gone by I didn't think of your stupid face and I wouldn't ever, _ever_ stop liking you. I…” 

_I love you._

The words were in his head, on his tongue, and almost passed his lips, but before he could break the fallen silence, he shut them both up, and kissed Oikawa. 

It was a soft kiss, gentle, and it didn't last long. 

There was no tongue, no fiddling with shirts, they hardly moved. It was just them for a moment, on top of the world that spinned ever so rapidly. 

When they parted, it almost felt like it had never happened, and he wanted to do it again, kiss him.  
He wanted to kiss him harder, hold him, feel every inch of his body align with his own. 

But he knew this was wrong. 

After all, he left a crying Misaki on the phone just three days ago. He had something to make up to her, even if it was just an apology. 

He had to end it respectfully. 

“Oikawa, I'm sorry I shouldn't have- I-I… My girlfriend… I have to break up with her.” 

Oikawa crossed his arms, leaning back against the leg of his desk. “Who is she, anyway? What's her name?” 

He tried to act indifferent - about the kiss as well as Iwaizumi mentioning his girlfriend - but he could see the blush creeping down his neck. 

“Misaki Hana. She was Johzenji's manager in high school. We did an assignment together, she's in theatre school. By the way, how did I get alcohol on my pants?” 

He changed the subject, again. Oikawa raised an eyebrow. “You don't remember?” Iwaizumi slowly shook his head, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

~~ Flashback Time ~~

He had been up until eleven, studying with Inu in his lap, then he had tea with Suga and Daichi before going to bed. 

It was about midnight when he slept, with a strange feeling in his stomach. 

At 3:23 he got a call that stirred him from his sleep. He grabbed his phone from his nightstand, thankful for the two-metre charging wire he’d bought just a week ago. 

He looked at the number. 

Iwaizumi Hajime. 

His heart skipped a beat and started pounding frantically.  
What happened?  
Why was he calling him?  
Why now?  
What had he done?  
Was he okay? 

He swiped to the green button and pressed the phone against his ear, sitting up in bed. ‘’Hello? Is this Tooru?’’ 

That was Iwaizumi’s phone, but not Iwaizumi speaking. 

‘’Yes? Where is Iwaizumi? Is he okay?’’ 

His hands were shaking, blood rushing to his brain from his limbs, leaving them tingling in anxiety. 

‘’No, he is not exactly okay, but he’s alive.’’ 

Oh god, he was in the hospital, wasn’t he?  
He got hit by a car because he was roaming the streets and - why were they calling him? 

Didn’t he have a girlfriend? 

Why would anyone call him? 

He started to understand less and less of the situation. ‘’I think he wants to see you.’’  
Him?  
Iwaizumi wanted to see him? 

He had blocked his number just a few days ago, and now he wanted to see him? 

What kind of… 

‘’I’m coming.’’ 

He put his phone back on the nightstand and got dressed in record time. His pants were dishevelled and his shirt had stains on it, but he couldn’t care less. He might have cared about the mess that was supposed to be his hair, but he was already putting on his shoes and only thought of his coat last-minute. 

His phone was in his pocket, vibrating with the address of Iwaizumi’s location. 

He made it to the bus stop in two minutes, usually it took him at least seven, ten if he was walking slowly. 

On the bus, he was wiggling his feet, fiddling with his coat. 

He tried to breathe normally, but he failed miserably, only thinking of Iwaizumi and what on earth he had done. 

Twenty-four. 

That was the amount of minutes it took the bus to get to the right stop. He nearly fell out, shouted a quick ‘’thank you!’’ over his shoulder to the bus driver, and ran. 

It was a long minute, running to the bar where Iwaizumi was located. He wished he could run faster every second of it, but eventually arrived. 

He threw open the door, and walked to the bartender. ‘’Where is he?’’ 

He was panicking, his heart still pounding, his breath coming out in vague huffs. 

The only thing the bartender did was quirk his eyebrow, and it _angered_ him. To deep in his core. 

Why was no one telling him where Iwaizumi was? 

Had they hidden him? 

‘’Iwaizumi! I got a call and-’’ 

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and snapped his head in the direction of the person. 

He was met with soft grey eyes, a face with a lot of wrinkles, and grey hair. ‘’I called you, your friend is in the back.’’ 

It was a very small, very old woman, and she led him to the back. ‘’So you are Tooru?’’ Oikawa could only nod. ‘’He’s behind that door, take good care of him.’’ He nodded again. 

‘’T-thank you, miss.’’ She smiled. 

He opened the door, less panicky than before. ‘’Iwaizumi?’’ 

He found him on the floor, just a few metres away, and while he hadn’t gotten hit by a car, he looked awful.  
Even when he smiled. 

‘’Yo.’’ 

That was the stupidest thing Oikawa had ever heard come out of his mouth and his panic took over his body. 

‘’IWA-CHAN!’’ 

He dropped to his knees in front of him, his hands finding the wounded places of Iwaizumi’s body. 

His face, his hand, his arms. He had bruises on his knuckles and his nose had been bleeding. 

What on earth had he done? 

Had he fought with someone? 

If that was the case, he was lucky no one had called the police, if he had been arrested, he would definitely not have gotten out of jail soon. 

‘’You dumbass! What did you do? You stupid, stupid Iwa-chan! You could have gotten into jail!’’ He wanted to hug him, cry on his shoulder, and take him home. God, he smelled of booze. ‘’I know.’’ Iwaizumi said, looking at the floor. 

_Look at me._ He thought. _Look into my eyes._ He needed him to. 

‘’What happened?’’ He asked, tilted his head to find Iwaizumi’s gaze. ‘’I picked a fight.’’ He answered softly. 

‘’With whom?’’ He only shook his head. 

For a moment, Oikawa considered pushing him to answer, but Iwaizumi seemed so upset that he decided against it. 

‘’Do you want me to take you home?’’ He was unconsciously holding his hand, and it was only now, when Iwaizumi turned his hand and held his fingers tightly, that he noticed. 

He also noticed how strong Iwaizumi was, especially drunk. ‘’N…’’ He bit his lip, and Oikawa pushed the thought away of how sexy that could have looked, if it wasn’t so painful to watch. 

‘’Only if home is with you.’’ 

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, feeling a shudder shake his entire body, a lump forming in his throat. ‘’O-okay.’’ 

They both stood up, Iwaizumi wobbly on his feet. ‘’Come on.’’ 

Oikawa helped Iwaizumi drape his arm over his shoulder, and half carried him out of the bar. ‘’Did you pee your pants?’’ Oikawa asked, pointing at a large stain on Iwaizumi’s pants. He looked down. ‘’No… That’s beer. Someone spilled it on me during the drinking game.’’ ‘’Drinking game? You know what, tell me later.’’ 

They got into the bus, Iwaizumi struggling with the high step and almost falling over. When they were seated, he was kind of touchy. 

For Iwaizumi standards, at least. He held his hand on his arm, occasionally looking at him for a long time, with deep concentration written all over his face. Most of the time though, he kept his eyes on the floor. 

‘’You are very pretty.’’ 

He concluded after a while, breath smelling strongly of alcohol. ‘’You are very drunk.’’ Oikawa did his best to hide the heat on his cheeks. ‘’Mmm yes, I think the last vodka only just kicked in.’’  
He decided to not think about how much he’d drank. 

 

‘’Quiet now, we can’t wake up Suga.’’ At first, he wanted to just put him to bed, but he realised soon that he did _not_ want beer stains in his bed. 

‘’Iwaizumi…’’ How was he going to do this subtly? ‘’Could you uhm…’’ Iwaizumi looked at him. ‘’Take off your pants?’’ 

Subtlety at its finest. 

‘’Y’know you could just say that you want to see me naked.’’ 

Yeah, he was afraid something like that would come out of it. Iwaizumi was apparently even worse when he was drunk. ‘’N-no! That’s not it!’’ 

It was true though. It had been more than once that he had wondered what Iwaizumi had looked like without his clothes. 

He already looked good in them, it made him curious to see what was under the fabric. ‘’I’m going to wash them, they’re dirty.’’ 

Iwaizumi started opening his belt, but apparently he was so drunk that he had hardly any control over his fine motorics, because his fingers kept slipping. 

‘’All right, let me do that.’’ 

His own fingers were slipping, too, but that was because he suddenly got really nervous, and started shaking. His head was buzzing, too. 

‘’Doesn’t seem like you’re much better at this.’’ 

Oh shut up. 

Finally, he succeeded. The pants dropped to the floor and Oikawa busied himself with picking them up, taking out the belt and ridding the pockets of his phone, cigarettes, a lighter and gum wrappers, trying his hardest not to look at Iwaizumi. 

‘’I’ll be right back.’’ 

He hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him, bolting to the laundry room. He held onto the washing machine with both hands as he tried to gather his thoughts, put them back in their places. 

_You are very pretty._

He wished Iwaizumi hadn’t said that, because he was so, so tempted right now to take advantage of him. 

The amount of times he’d dreamt of having Iwaizumi in his room and being able to take off his pants was probably unhealthy. Now it had happened, but the context was drastically different. And then there was the thing that he was drunk, and getting hard while drunk was… Hard. 

‘’Fuck me,’’ he sighed, and meant it. 

When he opened the door to his room again, Iwaizumi was lying in his bed. He thought he was asleep at first, but when he came closer, he turned on his side. ‘’Do you think you can sleep?’’ Oikawa crouched in front of him. ‘’Hm-hmm…’’ 

He looked away, mouth shifting, and Oikawa thought about kissing him. He almost did kiss him. In his head, he already did, but his inhibitions were smarter than him for a moment and he stayed still. 

‘’Do you think I’m a bad person, Oikawa?’’ He frowned. ‘’Why would I think that?’’ Iwaizumi looked away. ‘’I cheated on my girlfriend, with a boy.’’ 

‘’What’s wrong with boys?’’  
‘’I… I’m not supposed to be attracted to… Other guys…’’  
Oikawa frowned some more. ‘’That sounds like bullshit to me. Did your mom say that?’’ 

He could hardly imagine; the woman was amazing, and would accept Iwaizumi for whoever he was, he was sure of that. Otherwise, he would make sure of that. ‘’No. I just… Think that for some reason.’’  
‘’Well, that’s kind of weird. Just because we can’t get married doesn’t mean we can’t fall in love.’’  
‘’Would you marry me? If you could?’’ 

What kind of drunk thoughts did this guy have? 

Or… _Drunk words are sober thoughts._

He pushed the idea away. He had a girlfriend, and he felt terrible for cheating on her, that meant he still loved her, right? 

Maybe he was bisexual. 

‘’Y-yes, I would.’’ 

~~ End of Flashback Time ~~

‘’I got a call at three am to pick you up, I did, but I wasn’t there when someone spilled beer on your pants. According to you, it happened during a game. I put you to bed and slept in Suga’s bed. End of the story.’’ 

Iwaizumi nodded, glad that Oikawa left out the details; he did not want to know what he was like when black-out drunk. 

Not yet, anyway. 

They were silent for a while, and in the silence, Iwaizumi made a decision, one he should have made a long time ago. ‘’I have somewhere to be.’’ He stood up. ‘’But I’ll be back.’’ 

Oikawa looked up at him from his position on the floor, and it made his eyes look twice as big as usual. Too cute. 

‘’Okay. The stuff I took from your pockets is on the desk.’’ 

A few minutes later, he was walking down the sidewalk, headed for a flower shop nearby. It might have been smart to take a shower beforehand, but he honestly just wanted to get this over with. 

The half-empty pack of cigarettes was tickling for attention in his pocket, but he ignored it, unusually untempted. 

A bell dinged when he walked in, and he headed straight for the counter. ‘’Good morning sir.’’ He nodded. ‘’Good morning. Can I have a bouquet of white tulips, purple hyacinths and daffodils?’’ 

The man behind the counter frowned but got to work. ‘’That sounds like a refreshing combination to me, sir.’’  
‘’I suppose so, it’s for someone special.’’ The man grinned. ‘’A girl?’’  
‘’You could say that, yes.’’ 

 

He pressed the button, the rather big bouquet in his hand. 

‘’What do you want?’’ 

The voice of Misaki’s best friend was hostile, anger still boiling in her veins, probably. ‘’I came to apologise, and I’m aware that I should have called, but my phone died.’’ He sighed. ‘’Please let me in, I know she’s with you.’’ 

Neither he or Misaki wanted to go back to their flat, he knew that. He had expected more pleading, more noise, but the door buzzed and he was allowed to go in. 

‘’You better have a very shameful story to tell.’’ 

The girl who opened the door had thick black hair that ran down to her shoulder blades, deep brown bloodshot eyes with dark circles under them from comforting a crying Misaki through the night, and because she had been crying too. 

He was a real asshole, and surprised she had let him in. 

He wished he’d smoked now. 

‘’I do, and I would like to see her.’’ Chiasa, the name of the girl, stepped aside. ‘’She’s in the living room.’’ 

He walked in, took off his shoes, and continued to the living room. Misaki was sitting on the couch, still in her red hoodie, facing away from him. 

He took in a deep breath, trying to ignore his racing heart, the blood pulling away from his hands and knees, leaving them shaky. 

‘’Hana.’’ 

She turned her head slightly, and he could see her red, puffy eyes, her red nose, her trembling lips. 

He wanted to turn around and run away, find a liquor store and drink himself to death. He didn’t. 

He stood there, water dripping from the flower stems to the thinly carpeted floor. 

‘’I believe I have something to tell you.’’ 

She nodded, and he took it as a sign. He dragged his numb feet to the couch and sat down, next to her, but not close. He held up the flowers, and she let her eyes wander over them. 

‘’Forgive me.’’ He said, and there were already tears slipping down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away, and he couldn’t get himself to do it. 

‘’I see.’’ She choked out a laugh between her tears. 

‘’I have been stupid. I hurt you and I made a lot of mistakes in just two weeks. I know I broke some things that can never be repaired and I’m not asking you to try and mend them. I’m not even really asking you to forgive me, I just want you to… Tolerate me.’’ 

He looked down at the flowers, and he knew that Misaki knew exactly what they meant. They had spent hours together, bent over computer screens, looking up the meanings of flowers and plants. Because they liked flower language, and to look for new tattoo ideas for Iwaizumi. 

‘’I broke some things in you, in our relationship, and I know those can’t ever be fixed and that’s why I’m breaking up with you.’’ 

She nodded, not looking him in the eye. There was a silence for a while, but then something changed in her face. ‘’I think we should talk this through properly.’’ 

She stood up, took the flowers from him, and he watched as she became herself again. 

The strong girl, who fought her way through everything, who never lost herself in the process of playing so many others as an actress. The one who was always there for him, whether he was lying on the gym floor or running around with her in the park. Someone he had come to love and admired over the past two years. 

 

It wasn’t long before they were seated at the table together, the flowers next to them, steaming cups of tea in both their hands. 

‘’First off, I don’t want to know what happened, I have ideas of the nights you spent away, and I have a feeling those are a weak representation of what really happened. Secondly,’’ she took in a deep breath. ‘’I forgive you.’’ 

He looked up at her, frowning. ‘’But I-’’ She held up her hand, shaking her head. ‘’That’s it, I don’t want to hear anymore about it.’’ He nodded, agreeing silently. 

‘’You’re gay, aren’t you?’’ 

His eyes went wide, and he met hers, looked away, looked at her again. She was the first one to say it like that, out loud, as if she was stating a fact. It hit him like a truck, every thought of the past… Years came together and formed more thoughts, denials, accusations. He knew she was right, he _knew_ but he still wasn’t going to admit it just like that. 

‘’At least like… A little….’’ He chewed his lip. 

‘’Are you in love with Oikawa-san?’’ 

How did she know all this?  
Was it so obvious?  
Had she talked to Satoshi? 

But he’d never mentioned Oikawa to him other than a friend… 

‘’I… I think so…’’ 

He honestly wasn’t sure what he felt, how he felt for Oikawa. He just knew he got a good feeling from being with him. 

They looked up at each other at the same time, and they shared a thought. ‘’I don’t think either of us wants to live in that flat anymore.’’ He said, and she nodded in agreement. 

‘’We have to find new accommodation. I can stay here, I suppose. Chiasa has a guest room. How about you?’’ Iwaizumi shrugged. ‘’Haven’t got a clue, to be honest, but I suppose things will figure themselves out.’’  
She nodded. 

‘’This is the strangest break up I have ever seen.’’ Chiasa stood in the door opening, arms crossed, a deep frown on her face. 

Iwaizumi and Misaki chuckled. 

‘’We don’t hate each other.’’ Misaki said, and Iwaizumi looked at her, seeing all the damage he had done to her laid out on her face, and knew that he was letting go of one of the best things he had ever had. ‘’No,’’ he said. ‘’We don’t.’’ 

But sometimes, even when something was this good, you had to let it go.

‘’Do right by Oikawa-san, Hajime. I know he’s been through some bad conflicts with himself over the past few years.’’ She said as she closed the door, and he realised that Misaki was not the only person he had done damage to. ‘’I will.’’ 

THE END

Just kidding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chiasa = one thousand mornings. Because she was with Misaki all the time, get it?
> 
> White tulips = asking for forgiveness  
> Purple hyacinth = sorrow/ I am sorry, please forgive me  
> Daffodils = forgiveness (and many other things)


	9. Holding Onto You So Tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL BEEN WAITIN' FOR THIS

He walked into another store, rang another bell, alerted another person behind another counter. 

‘’Iwaizumi.’’ 

‘’Yo, Kuroo.’’ 

Kuroo was sitting behind the counter, busy with some papers. ‘’You’re in luck, my last appointment of the day left ten minutes ago.’’ Iwaizumi scratched behind his ear. ‘’I’m not exactly here for a tattoo.’’ Kuroo looked up. ‘’Oh?’’ 

He pulled a chair up to the counter and got on with telling the briefest and least shameful summary of the past two weeks. ‘’Dang man, that’s quite the rough time you went through.’’ 

Iwaizumi nodded, looking at the wooden counter. ‘’I don’t want to ask this of you, and I wouldn’t if I deemed it unnecessary but… Could I maybe crash with you until I find my own place to live? It shouldn’t be more than a few weeks.’’ 

Kuroo leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and blew some hair from his face. He’d hardly changed over the years, except for the fact that he had accumulated quite some works of art all over his body that he called tattoos. 

Kuroo was Iwaizumi’s go-to tattoo artist, and he’d never let him down, not even with the most difficult pieces. ‘’Well you see, I don’t have a problem with it, you’re a great guy and you seem easy enough to live with.’’ 

Iwaizumi nodded, hearing the _but_ in his voice. ‘’But I am going to America in a week, I’ll be gone for three weeks.’’   
‘’Oh…’’   
‘’ _However,_ Kenma will be alone for three weeks, and I think he would like some company.’’ ‘’Oh, do you think I could-’’   
Kuroo was already taking his phone from his pocket, grinning. ‘’I am quite sure.’’ It was settled a mere ten minutes later: Iwaizumi could stay with Kenma as long as he liked, though he was pretty sure it would be preferred if he left when Kuroo came back. 

They talked about things for a while; tattoos, Kenma, and Oikawa. Kuroo snickered when Iwaizumi expressed his doubts about their relationship. ‘’You said you kissed him this morning. He didn’t protest or pull back?’’ Iwaizumi shook his head.   
‘’Then he’s into you.’’ He grinned. ‘’If that wasn’t obvious already.’’ 

Iwaizumi raised his eyebrows. ‘’Excuse me?’’   
‘’Oh come _on._ You guys have been friends since forever, and it is getting increasingly obvious you have feelings for one another.’’ When he didn’t respond - he just gaped at him - Kuroo continued, a more serious tone to his voice. He leant across the counter, folding his hands together. His mouth seemed to go from his usual derpy grin to a small, pressed line. 

‘’You guys reminded me of Kenma and myself, in a way. You were much louder, of course, but I could see it in your eyes, the way you always held back your punches and the way Oikawa always got a little louder when he talked to you. I just… It was always obvious to me, especially when Kenma and I got together; I connected the dots pretty quickly. I’m surprised you haven’t, actually.’’ 

‘’Oh.’’ 

… He said that a lot lately. 

 

He fiddled with his thumbs. ‘’Say, Kuroo, can you give me some advice on the whole love thing?’’ Kuroo sighed. ‘’Look man, I would, but I am working.’’ 

‘’Okay. Let’s continue our session then.’’   
‘’Now? But we had an appointment…’’ 

Iwaizumi was already walking to the table. He pulled off his shirt, familiar with how things went now. ‘’That doesn’t look good.’’ He looked at Kuroo in confusion. ‘’I mean, you look great-’’ He chuckled when Iwaizumi playfully shoved him. ‘’Some guy punched me in the ribs last night, but it’s on the other side so it shouldn’t be a bother.’’ 

Kuroo was on his feet now, getting the ink and disinfectant out, and Iwaizumi laid down, carefully not to hurt his ribs. Kuroo turned on a stool and started cleaning around the area that needed to be inked. ‘’How did you get together with Kenma?’’ 

Kuroo hummed a bit before answering, probably taking his time to relive the moments as he prepared the needle. 

‘’I stopped him on my last day at high school when we were walking home. Told him that there was something I wanted to talk about, strangely enough, he agreed with me.’’ 

The needle started purring and soon enough Iwaizumi felt a familiar stinging on his side. 

‘’It was like we both figured it was time we confessed to each other. There was a lot of stuttering and awkwardness but it felt very right. We didn’t kiss until two weeks later though. And our first time sex was when I had just left for university. Kenma came after me when he couldn’t take it anymore, just showed up to my door. We were apart for a solid week.’’ 

Iwaizumi hid his chuckle the best he could. Kuroo had taken one semester of Arts Studies at university, decided he hated it, and quit. He was currently in a gap year, running a tattoo shop of one of his cousins, and loving it. 

‘’Say,’’ Iwaizumi propped his head under his arm. ‘’Do you want to keep doing this?’’ 

‘’Well…’’ Kuroo was silent for a bit, carefully making an outline. ‘’I love doing this, but I have been thinking about taking part-time Chemistry classes at uni and eventually designing my own tattoo ink.’’ 

_That sounded very much like Kuroo,_ Iwaizumi thought, and then, reluctantly, _perhaps Law doesn’t sound very much like me._

‘’Do you think my studies suit me?’’ He looked at Kuroo, who was furrowing his brows, getting closer and closer to his skin. ‘’Do you want the acceptable answer or the truth?’’ 

Iwaizumi sighed. 

‘’That’s a no.’’ Kuroo hummed. ‘’If you say so.’’ 

It was quiet again for a while, and Iwaizumi took the time to just enjoy the buzzing of the needle, think about his life. 

‘’It’s not that I don’t think it suits you,’’ Kuroo started, and he opened his eyes again. ‘’You just don’t seem to be in the right mind to devote a lot of time to studying right now.’’ He couldn't have been more spot-on. “Can I say that?” A flicker of classic Japanese “oh dear did I say something wrong” worry was visible in his golden eyes, but Iwaizumi reassured him. 

“Yeah, because you're right as hell.”

\------------------------

About an hour later, Iwaizumi was face to face with Sugawara, who told him to call him “Suga”. “Can I take a shower, by the way? I'm pretty uh…” _Gross._ Suga winked. “Don't worry, Oikawa has told me all about it. He also left you a towel and a T-shirt you could wear, in case you needed it. Although he did say something about it being too small…” 

Suga’s eyes traveled down to Iwaizumi's shoulders and arms, he'd been training them before he met Satoshi in favour of smoking himself to death and bankruptcy.   
Cigarettes were expensive. 

“Thanks.” He decided not to question the 'Oikawa told me all about it’ part - especially since Oikawa hadn't told _him_ all about it. 

The shower was either scalding or freezing and the head of it was kind of funky, getting water all over the place, but it was better than his own flat. 

He couldn't quite yet face the exciting times Misaki and he had had in their shower, whether it was sex or singing Fall Out Boy songs (sometimes they even practised Misaki's lines in the shower, she said it helped her remember them). 

As he was drying his hair in front of the mirror in nothing but his boxers, Daichi walked in. He looked him over, sighed and said: “Well I do get where Koushi is coming from.” 

Then he disappeared into the restroom without any more words. Iwaizumi decided that the very visible blush on his cheeks was from heat of the shower. 

He tried on the T-shirt Oikawa lend him and it fit rather well, so he wondered what Suga had meant by it not fitting. 

“Suga…” Suga looked up from his book. “Yes?”   
“Where is Oikawa?”   
“Oh, he's at a cafe a few blocks away, it's called Coffee Beans. Just down the road and to the left at the third street.” 

\----------------

He found a brown ponytail hunched over a thick book, a stack of pencils and highlighters and a slightly messy notebook, at a small table in the back of the cafe. His coffee cup was empty, but the foam hadn't completely dried down yet. 

As quietly as he could, Iwaizumi pulled the second chair at the table back and sat down on it, nevertheless startling Oikawa. “Sorry if I'm disturbing you.” He tried to smile apologetically but all of his antics suddenly felt stupid and clumsy as he looked at the perfectly organised mess in front of him. 

Oikawa was taking out his earbuds, eyes slightly wide behind his glasses. He was wearing a white button down shirt, with the first few buttons open to expose his baby soft looking skin. 

Iwaizumi felt the sudden need to bite into his neck and ruin his perfect complexion by leaving hickeys and bite marks everywhere. 

“I… Wanted to talk to you and I think it's kind of urgent.” 

He tried to look him in the eyes but every time he was met with brown he averted his gaze back to white. “That's okay.” He heard the soft smile in his voice, but didn't dare to look up. “I have done wrong, by myself, by Misaki, but also by you and I came here not to make it right but to give you a chance to tell me how you feel.” 

Neither of them heard it, but in the background played a song.

_I know I done wrong I'll pay for it._

“Oh. I-I didn't expect that, to be honest, but okay.”

_It's your turn to talk for once I'm listenin'._

“Over the past two years I-we got separated and…” Oikawa was playing with his pen while talking, trying to find the right words. “During that time I was very angry.”

_Say that you don't want me._

“At you, but also at myself.” 

_Say that you don't need me._

“Because I just couldn't bring myself to pick up the phone, you know? Which was the weirdest thing. We were so close, and all of a sudden, it was gone. I couldn't reach you anymore, even though you weren't so far away.”

_Tell me I'm the fool._

“But you didn't call or text me either!”

_Tell me you've been tortured._

“Although I guess I always kind of felt like…” He pushed a stray hair strand behind his ear, looking away. “Our friendship was sort of one-sided?”

_Tell me you've been beaten._

“But that's weird, right?”

_Even if it doesn't matter._

“I knew you cared for me, you were always protective and all like 'don’t you do this’ or 'do that’ and 'drink your water, you dumbass!’” He chuckled to himself. “But I guess I kind of lost you along the way and it took me last night to realise…”

_Tell me that I'm unknown to you._

“That I really want to be friends with you again.” 

Iwaizumi wasn't sure what he was feeling. He felt terrible -to say the least- about making Oikawa feel unwanted when he was really the one person in the world he wanted the most. 

He wished he had picked up his phone and just called him. 

It was such an easy thing to do, but he never did it. It was only when he came face to face with him that he had realised how much he’d missed Oikawa and how badly he needed him in his life. 

How much he longed for him. 

‘’I-I missed you, Iwaizumi and I really want to be in your life again, I want you to be in my life again.’’ 

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t find the words he wanted to say, he had to say. He had to say _something._

But Oikawa had completely wiped his mind of sentences that would fit this situation. 

‘’Me too.’’ 

It felt like the stupidest thing he had ever said, and he wanted to say so much more. He wanted to pull Oikawa into a whirlpool of loving phrases, show him how much he meant to him, how much he was worth, even though he knew he wouldn’t ever come close to describing just how amazing he was. 

He looked around, trying to find something that would transfer the thoughts in his head to something comprehensible. 

There was nothing.

Absolutely nothing around him to help him, unless he wanted to leave the cafe and go somewhere else. 

Then, he got a strange idea. 

It was the only thing he could think of, and if he wasn’t mistaken, Oikawa would understand it. 

‘’I want to say more but I only sound brainless in my head.’’ He looked at the drying coffee foam in Oikawa’s cup, not quite ready to meet his eyes. ‘’I’ve been a huge dick.’’ 

Oikawa snorted, giggling into his hand. ‘’I don’t know why I didn’t call or text you, maybe I’ll never know but I know that I’m more sorry than…’’ 

‘’Iwaizumi.’’ Oikawa had taken a hold of his hand, caressing his thumb on his palm. It sent tiny shivers trickling down his spine like lightning bolts. ‘’I know.’’ 

Without realising what he was saying, Iwaizumi whispered something he had been wanting to whisper for a long time. ‘’I want to kiss you.’’ 

It was a spur of the moment, impulsive thing to do, but it felt so right that he was certain he wouldn’t regret it. He looked down at himself and took a deep breath. ‘’Shit, I think I’m gay for you.’’ 

Oikawa’s hand curled around his fingers a little tighter, and Iwaizumi could see the tell-tale red blooming from his ears to his cheekbones. 

‘’Me too. I’m gay for me too.’’ 

‘’Oikawa!’’ 

He felt his face burn and was very much ready to punch Oikawa on the shoulder. Seriously? At a moment like this? 

‘’I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’’ 

Oikawa was giggling so hard he swayed, and Iwaizumi felt the tendency to help him out by throwing him off his chair. At last, he took a deep breath and straightened. ‘’Iwa-chan,’’ he started, a smile still lingering on his lips, but it didn’t matter what he was going to say. 

Iwaizumi had already gotten every piece of information he needed when he said ‘Iwa-chan’. 

‘’I lied when I said I want to be your friend. I want to be with you for longer than a friend, as more than a friend. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, in your arms.’’ 

There were a few agonisingly slow seconds of silence, in which they both processed what just happened, the full force of their words resonating into their nerves, down their spines. 

Then, they stood up, their minds aligned, and 

_fled_

the cafe. 

Oikawa’s books were left behind. Their footsteps pounded and stumbled on the pavement, and they hardly made it to an alley around the corner. Iwaizumi was shoving Oikawa against the wall, holding his shoulders with both hands, absentmindedly noticing they were significantly bigger than Misaki’s or Satoshi’s, bigger than his palms. 

He kissed him, so hard and rough he wondered for about half a second if he was suffocating Oikawa. But the only thing Oikawa did was grab at his upper arms and kiss him back very, very hungrily. 

This was basically the opposite of what happened that morning, they weren’t calm or soft right now, they just longed for exactly _this, right now._

It was messy, sloppy, uncoordinated and _so fucking good._ Iwaizumi sucked at Oikawa’s bottom lip, probing with his tongue until he ever so willingly opened up to him and their tongues were colliding, hot and wet and very unaccustomed to each other. 

One of Oikawa’s hands went up and his fingers curled into his hair, the other sneaked down, pulled at his hip, he was as if he was trying to get them closer than they were, even though that wasn’t exactly possible. 

Iwaizumi was desperately trying to breathe, but it seemed as if his body was so occupied with the one in front of him, it forgot to function. 

Eventually, through all the heat and crawling hands, he had to break away and gulp in some air before he would faint. ‘’Do... Do you think we should take this elsewhere?’’ Oikawa was panting too, looking up at him with red cheeks. 

Iwaizumi nodded. 

‘’Then I think I should pay and get my books back.’’ 

Oh right. They went back inside, legs slightly wobbly, cheeks burning. The girl behind the register looked at them like she knew exactly what happened, and that made it a lot worse. 

Oikawa’s hands were trembling and it took him three tries to get his card into the machine. Iwaizumi followed the lines of his body with his eyes. The soft curve of his neck into his shoulder, the baby hairs peeking from under his ponytail, the dirt on the back of his shirt. 

He wanted to touch him, rip off his shirt and whatever was under that, feel the heat of his skin under his fingertips, his lips, his tongue.   
He wanted to hear him - stuttering, moaning, have his hips writhe under him. His eyes traced down, along the outlines of his shirt that fluttered at his hips, the contour of his thighs.

He got stuck on his backside and he really tried to push aside the idea of fucking him over the very counter they were standing at. Perhaps while he was still wearing his shirt. 

‘’Iwa-chan?’’ 

Oikawa waved in his face and he was rudely awakened from his fantasy. ‘’Yeah?’’ His voice was strange, strained, and he couldn’t properly swallow. ‘’Time to go.’’ 

Oikawa took his hand and he followed him outside like a lost puppy, still slightly hazy. And hey, he didn’t _mind_ walking behind him. 

They were back on campus before he spoke again, hopping up the stairs. ‘’I’m just going to put away my books. Would you like something to drink?’’ Oikawa glanced over his shoulder when they reached his floor. ‘’Are you kidding?’’ Iwaizumi mumbled, earning a giggle. 

They took off their shoes and left them at the door, and as soon as Oikawa had put down his books on his desk, Iwaizumi was all over him. 

He grabbed his hips, pulled him back against him, burying his nose into his neck. ‘’You’re so pretty.’’ He whispered, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing in the scents clinging to his body. Soap, coffee, laundry detergent and whatever Oikawa’s deodorant smelled like, probably some sort of musk. 

As great as that was, Iwaizumi knew what Oikawa was like when he was sweaty, from their times in school, practising volleyball into the lonely hours, where only they would remain on the court together. 

He wished he’d known how he felt then, because loving him now would have been so much easier.   
Nevertheless, he enjoyed the newness of his body, the unknown ridges and bumps of his bones and muscles, the smoothness of his skin after he’d taken a shower before he left. 

He wanted to get to know it, see how it responded when he touched him, feel it work under him, tremble and shake, watch his muscles flex.   
He wanted to see things no one else had ever seen, do things to him no one had ever done. He wanted to mess up his hair and make him lose his mind to such a degree that he wouldn’t even care, and he longed to hear him beg. 

‘’You said that last night too.’’ What? Just what had gone down that he didn’t know of? ‘’Not much besides that, but it kind of stuck.’’ 

He silently swore to himself to never get that drunk again. 

He toyed a bit with the hem of Oikawa’s shirt before slipping his hand under it and gently pulling his undershirt from his pants. 

Oikawa stood straight, spine going rigid, as he ventures upwards. His skin was unbelievably soft, goosebumps rising wherever he touched him. He placed his lips in the crook of his neck, not quite moving yet, and felt a shiver of anticipation pull through Oikawa’s body as he exhaled. 

Oikawa tilted his head, baring his neck. Meanwhile, Iwaizumi’s hand was still moving up, other hand holding his hip. Muscles twitched under his fingers and he could feel his heart pounding. 

Rather by accident, he brushed over his nipple, and earned a gasp. 

_Oh._

He started to kiss his neck, thankful they were nearly the same height; he was so done with muscle aches simple from reaching down when making out. 

He circled his nipple with just his fingertips, playing, teasing. Oikawa’s hand found its way back into his hair and he wished he could see his face. 

He wondered if he’d closed his eyes, if he was biting his lip, he did feel him breathe, at a quickening pace. 

He was slowly piercing through the shells of self-control always so perfectly displayed, and he was loving it. Every breath, every beat of his heart, every shiver that ran through his body, brought him a step closer to having him lose control, turning him into a begging mess. 

When he touched the tip, Oikawa’s hand tightened, so he did it again, earning a forced exhale.   
He tilted his head, resting on Iwaizumi’s shoulder, granting him a view of his face. He'd screwed his eyes shut tightly and pressed his lips together, pink blossoming on his cheeks. 

Iwaizumi dropped his hands, grabbed his hips, and grinded against him, letting him in on just how hard he’d gotten from just this, and their makeout session earlier. 

A small noise that sounded most like a whine escaped from Oikawa’s throat, his mouth opening slightly and _oh boy_ that did some things Iwaizumi wouldn’t dare to begin describe. 

He grabbed Oikawa’s waist, turned around and practically threw him onto the bed, climbing on top of him. He was on his hands and knees, quite a bit higher than Oikawa, who propped himself up on his elbows and captured his lips with his own, one arm slung over his neck. 

Iwaizumi returned the kiss and attempted to unbutton his shirt in the meantime. 

This turned out to be harder than expected. 

He was getting distracted by Oikawa, who had apparently mastered the art of kissing. He did not want to know how, not at this moment. 

It was also quite hard to undo someone else's buttons with your eyes closed, if you were used to opening girls’ shirts, which were buttoned the other way. 

After about thirty failed attempts at the third one (Oikawa had left the first two open), Oikawa couldn't take it anymore and started to giggle.   
It was a strange feeling to kiss someone while they were laughing, but it wasn't a bad one. 

Oikawa's stuttering breath tickled his lips, the waves of his laughter resonating in his ears. ‘’Won’t you let me concentrate?’’ He mumbled, and Oikawa shook his head. ‘’No.’’ 

He broke their kiss, sat up, and started kissing him again, but instead of turning it into a full-on makeout session, he stuck to the very basics, not even using his tongue; just soft pecks, on different spots on his lips, while his hands slid down. 

‘’My shirt looks good on you. It’s actually too big for me, especially on the shoulders.’’ 

He was smiling again, Iwaizumi didn't dare open his eyes to see what kind of smile that was - he could already guess. 

“I sleep in it, mostly, and might have once or twice…” 

He pulled the shirt over his head in a single swift movement. “Oh I have waited for this.” He whispered, fingers spreading on Iwaizumi's chest, who looked him in the eyes and was met with nearly only pupil with a small ring of chocolate brown around it. “What were you going to say?” Iwaizumi asked, and Oikawa innocently batted his lashes at him, then looked away and sucked on his bottom lip. 

“I've worn this shirt and,” he gestured at the shirt lying beside him, “thought about you and done you know… stuff.” 

Iwaizumi didn't know, he had no idea what he was trying to say. 

He frowned. “I haven't got a clue.” Oikawa sighed, his face getting redder by the second. “I jerked off to the thought of you, okay. You dense butthead.” 

Oh. 

_Oh._

Iwaizumi grinned and kissed his jaw. “Well, next time you jerk it will be with me inside you, instead of inside your head.” Oikawa nearly jumped. “You can't just say something like that the way you just said it!” 

He was almost stuttering, shaken. Iwaizumi raised a single eyebrow. “I just did.” 

He covered his face with his hands out of embarrassment - too cute. “Oh my god.” Iwaizumi chuckled and unbuttoned Oikawa's shirt, only to find that he was wearing an undershirt, sadly. 

Logically, but still sadly.

”Oikawa, put your hands down, I need to get rid of this shirt.” The response was a whine, but he did drop his hands, refusing to look Iwaizumi in the eyes. 

The shirt smoothly rolled down his shoulders and Iwaizumi laid it next to them, consciously not tossing it onto the floor, even though it was already stained from when he pushed Oikawa against the wall. 

“You never told me about that one!” 

He pointed at the tattoo Kuroo had worked on today. It was half the face of a wolf, its mouth open, baring his teeth, ears pointed back, nose scrunched. 

Today, Kuroo had added red, vertical lines along the side of the tattoo, that was placed on Iwaizumi's side, ending at his hip. There were a lot of shadows, a lot of contrast play, and it wasn't done yet. 

“I didn't feel like stripping.” 

Oikawa seemed almost enchanted, he traced it, slowly, carefully, as if the wolf was about to bite off his hands. Where he touched, the skin formed goosebumps and little sparks were sent down the insides of Iwaizumi's thighs. 

“Oh.” 

Oikawa touched at Iwaizumi's hard-on, that was apparently visible even through the cover of his pants. 

Great. 

Iwaizumi attempted to be unbothered but he was _sensitive._ He turned his head away, and only remembered after a few seconds he was supposed to breathe. His breath came too fast and slightly ragged - Oikawa smirked. He unbuckled his belt, popped open his button and pulled down his zipper in such efficient manner that Iwaizumi was certain he'd done this before, often, and not just on himself. 

He'd told himself to breathe but he choked on an inhale when Oikawa started palming him through his boxers, the fabric providing extra friction. He wanted to rock his hips, fuck into Oikawa's hand, but he managed enough self-control to at least not do that. 

He couldn't control his veins though, or the heat that spread through his body from his groin, and he was pretty sure he was getting red all over. Slowly, the little control he had was dripping away like snow that was melting in the warmth of the sun. When Oikawa slid his thumb over his tip his head fell back and moaned. 

“And I was the pretty one.” Oikawa sighed. Iwaizumi looked at him, and though his vision was hazy, he could see his heaving chest, the straining of his dark blue jeans. 

“You are gorgeous.” He pouted. “You're ruining the mood.” Iwaizumi sighed and rolled his eyes. “And you're overdressed.” 

Despite the fact that his cock was throbbing and he wasn't quite far from orgasm, he wanted something more, something better. Oikawa was still wearing his undershirt, which was blatantly unacceptable. 

He started pulling on the hem of the shirt, eyes glued to every inch of skin that appeared under it. He'd seen him half naked before, while they were changing for volleyball, but never like this. 

Never this close, he'd never seen the muscles flex just because he was touching him. “Say,” he swallowed. It felt a little strange to ask specifically Oikawa this, but there wasn't really another way. 

He'd never been with a guy before and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt him. “What ehm… What do you like?” Oikawa looked confused. “I like milk bread, and you.” Now it was Iwaizumi's turn to be confused. “Is that a gay sex term?”   
“What? No! It's- you know what it is!” 

Then the penny fell and Oikawa's mouth formed an “o”. “Oh, like that. Well, ehm…” The blush on his cheeks had been pretty intense, but it was now crawling to his ears and even his neck got spotted with red. Was this so hard to talk about?   
Misaki and Iwaizumi had done it a lot, probably so much that it wasn't awkward anymore. He scratched the back of his neck, looking anywhere that wasn't Iwaizumi's face. “I-I liked the way y-you kiss? Your tongue? I like that. A-a lot.” 

Iwaizumi almost felt sorry for him, but he wanted to know this, had to know this, if he wanted to please him properly. “But wait!” Oikawa pressed his hands against his chest, as if to stop him from doing something. They were warm, soft. “I can't have sex with you!” He probably realised how that sounded when it came from his mouth because he immediately added: “Not right now, I mean. I have a practical exam tomorrow and I don't want to be wrecked. Also I have like zero supplies.” 

He looked into his eyes, away, and back into his eyes. “Supplies…?” Oikawa scoffed, as if to laugh at himself. “Yeah I uh, kind of had sex with a porn star like three days ago?” He was looking away again. 

“I was lucky he brought his own condoms because mine sure as hell wouldn't have fit him.” His eyes widened. “That dick was _huge_. We used up at least seventy-five percent of a fresh bottle of lube and…” 

He looked down again, and now Iwaizumi was certain he was checking out the size of his dick. “I don't think that the little I have left would suffice in this case.” Iwaizumi let out a long exhale, he really had no idea how this whole thing worked. 

Straight sex didn't seem to require half as much preparation as this, as long as the foreplay worked out. “What are you thinking about?” He stroked his cheek with his thumb, holding the rest of his face with his hand. Iwaizumi turned his head and kissed his wrist. “Pleasing you.” “A-ahha…” 

He frowned, pushing away some hair falling in his face. “What? Has no one ever said that to you?” The way his eyes sought out the comfort of looking at the sheets again said enough. 

“Oikawa, how many boyfriends have you had?” 

“Three…” 

“And how many of them were serious?” There was some grumpy mumbling. “Christ, how many of them have you been on a date with?” No answer. “Have you ever been on a date?” “Ghmmmno…” 

Iwaizumi shook his head, taking Oikawa's in his hand so they were looking at each other and followed the outline of his bottom lip with his finger. “I can't imagine no one ever took you out.” 

“Well I never really wanted to go out with anyone, either.” He spoke slowly, as if he was doubting every word he was saying, weighing every meaning in his mind. “I told myself I was waiting for the right guy but I think I knew that I had the right guy and I let him slip between my fingers.” He smiled. “Would you like to take me out on a date, Iwa-chan?” 

Oh Lord, he was beautiful. “Very much so.”   
‘’Okay good. Give me your phone.’’   
‘’Excuse me?’’ But Oikawa was already digging his hand into his pockets, which had gotten stuck somewhere on Iwaizumi’s thighs. 

He’d always had a habit of taking phones and messing around on them, often leaving a weird selfie as Iwaizumi’s wallpaper. 

Over the years, Iwaizumi had learnt that putting a lock on his phone made no difference. Oikawa guessed it, every single time. ‘’So, the twenty-eighth of April, you’re taking me on a date. Let me know when you pick me up.’’ 

Apparently, he had no say in this. 

‘’Wait, Oikawa, that’s in three days!’’ 

‘’Uhm yeah, I want to fuck you but you seem to want to go on a date first so that’s about as long as I’ll last before I go mental.’’ 

Later, Iwaizumi would learn that that wasn’t entirely true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That song is Unknown by Jacob Banks and if you aren't listening to Jacob Banks you better be living in a desert shack or something, otherwise, it's simply unacceptable.


	10. The Way I Did Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment everyone (including me) has been waiting for...

The 28th of April, 2018.

‘’Oikawa.’’

‘’Oikawa.’’

He gently shook his shoulder. Oikawa groaned, curling into himself. ‘’Oikawa. Wake up.’’ 

More groaning, something that vaguely sounded like noooooo. He shook his shoulder again, a little more aggressive now, and Oikawa turned around, onto his back, and cracked an eye open. 

‘’Iwa-chan…’’ 

Iwaizumi’s heart jumped a bit at the nickname, and he felt a flutter in his stomach. 

But then, Oikawa turned his face to his clock radio, and he _chirped_ when he saw the time. 

‘’It’s six am!’’ 

Abruptly, he turned on his side, pulled the covers up to his ear and closed his eyes. 

‘’You never set a time for the date, and if we don’t want to get trampled by the crowds, we ought to leave as soon as possible.’’   
When Oikawa did nothing but grunt, he added: ‘’I made us breakfast.’’ 

He got a long, deep sigh in return. He rolled his eyes. ‘’Well excuse me.’’ He stood straight, taking the covers up with him. 

Oikawa screamed. 

‘’What is wrong with you?’’ 

He pulled his knees up to his bare chest, trying to contain some warmth, to no avail. ‘’I’m not going to answer that.’’ 

He pulled Oikawa up by his arm, noting that doing that was easier with Misaki; she was like half Oikawa’s size. 

Oikawa, who was holding onto _him_ now, softly whining and trembling. ‘’Were you planning on putting on clothes or are you just going to walk around in your boxers all day?’’ 

The only response he got was a pair of long, strong legs draping themselves around his waist, Oikawa’s arms sliding around his shoulders, holding onto to him tightly. He pressed his nose into Iwaizumi’s chest. 

Deciding against protesting, Iwaizumi walked to the living room, with the adjoined kitchen. He’d already put down the necessary utensils, but left the steaming noodle soup on the stove. 

From their many years together, he knew that neither of them would be up for a huge breakfast now, so he’d kept it simple and light, but made sure to include liquids. 

He was about to set Oikawa down on a cold, wooden chair, when he realised there was a couch only a few metres away. ‘’Hey, you want to have breakfast on the sofa?’’ Oikawa nodded, probably half asleep and sulking that he’d woken him up at this ungodly hour. 

He picked up a blanket and draped it over his shoulders whilst setting him down. It took some effort, but Oikawa let go of him with the promise of a bowl of hot soup and a quick kiss, which made Iwaizumi blush and feel stupid. 

They sat next to each other, Oikawa cuddled up to him as closely as possible while trying to balance his bowl.   
But the soft rhythm of his breath and the occasional tremble in his muscles were welcoming and warming in a way that made the blood rush through Iwaizumi’s thighs, all the way up to his ears until he only heard the rush of his own circulation, just for a moment. 

 

‘’So… Will you tell me where we’re going now?’’ Oikawa was pulling up his jeans, the tick of his loose hanging belt buckle coming up along the small curve of his hips. 

He stretched out the muscles in his torso, making them jump and little white spots forming wherever he was pulling away blood. 

Finally, he pulled out a black sweater that said ‘’Trouble Maker’’ in white letters on the front. It was slightly oversized at his wrists, but went around his shoulders perfectly. 

‘’You’ll see.’’

And see he did. 

It was seven when they got there, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Oikawa’s mouth dropped open to a small ‘’o’’ as they walked in. ‘’We would’ve gotten trampled by the crowds if we’d gone in the afternoon or night.’’ Iwaizumi said, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore; Oikawa slid his hand down his arm and intertwined their fingers as they walked. ‘’I don’t mind.’’ 

His eyes were stuck to the blooming blossoms around them. 

_Wisteria._

They were purple flowers, hanging close together in groups, they were especially beautiful now in the chill morning air, with the dew still clinging to them. 

The park was completely void of people and they could hear the otherwise shy songbirds chirping around them, hopping on the pavement a few metres ahead, only to fly away when they got close. 

Some tortoises were lazily swimming around in the water, although most remained on the stones at the water’s edge, or nipping at the leafs from low-hanging plants, now proclaimed victims of their sharp beaks. 

Oikawa softly hummed, letting his eyes wander around in otherwise silent admiration. 

 

They sat down on a bench and just looked around, still holding hands, and didn’t speak until Oikawa laid his head on Iwaizumi’s shoulder. 

‘’Best.date.ever.’’ He sighed. 

Iwaizumi stretched his neck to look at him. ‘’This is your first.’’ 

It earned him a wide grin that made sparks fly around his heart, and assured him that getting up at four this morning was totally worth it. ‘’And I know I won’t ever go on one even remotely as great as this.’’ 

He buried his nose in the mess that was Oikawa’s hair and kissed his head. ‘’Challenge accepted. From now on, every date I take you on will be twice as awesome as the last.’’ 

The soft vibrations of Oikawa’s giggles went right down to his spine. He turned his hand and touched Iwaizumi’s knuckles with his fingertips. ‘’Those scabs are a day old. What did you do?’’ 

He didn’t move his head to look up at him, and there was no judgement in his voice, but Iwaizumi wasn’t born yesterday; he heard the faint notes of worry clouding his sentences. 

‘’Went down to the gym and beat up a boxing bag, mister Doctor.’’ 

‘’Physiotherapist. We need to know a thing or two about wounds too. And if you’re lying, I will break your humerus.’’ 

‘’My what now?’’ Iwaizumi scoffed, smiling. ‘’The bone in your upper arm. Radius and ulna sound so boring. Those are your lower arm bones, by the way.’’ 

‘’I remember something of having two crossing bones in my lower arms from Biology, yeah. And I wouldn’t dare lie to you.’’ 

The weak morning sun did something to his senses, made him more honest than usual, more vulnerable. It was hardly a surprise for him that when Oikawa started to caress the palm of his hand, he shivered.   
‘’Iwa-chan...’’   
‘’Hm?’’   
‘’Kiss me.’’ 

He looked up and Oikawa’s face was in front of him, the chocolate of his eyes piercing through him like a hundred tiny needles, stinging and tingling deep into his core.   
He felt the heat of his breath carried on the wind onto his neck and he hesitated for less than a second until he put his hand in the nape of Oikawa’s neck and pulled him close. 

The world stopped turning, and there seemed to be nothing but the soft embrace of Oikawa’s lips, his hand on his thigh. The hand moved to his chest, grabbed his jacket, and brought their upper bodies closer together, Oikawa tilted his head and touched at Iwaizumi’s bottom lip with his tongue, but Iwaizumi wasn’t having it. 

‘’Seriously? Out here in the open?’’ Oikawa whined. ‘’No one is around. Plus, do you know how long it’s been since I got laid?’’   
‘’I’m guessing it’s been a while.’’   
‘’Like six days!’’ 

Oikawa jumped back when Iwaizumi snorted and started laughing. ‘’Oh, come on!’’ 

He was visibly trying to think of something that would make Iwaizumi take him seriously, but he desperately failed. ‘’Come on,’’ Iwaizumi stood up, holding out his hand to Oikawa, ‘’let’s go get something to wake your dumb ass up. I know just the place.’’

 

They ended up in a cute little cafe hidden somewhere along the other shops in Kuramae. Iwaizumi blew the steam off a classic Japanese drip coffee with milk, whilst Oikawa sipped some matcha tea with milk foam, he had tried to argue that this would wake him up, but since green tea didn’t contain any caffeine, he’d lost. 

Although considering his coffee consumption during test weeks, this was probably for the better. 

Iwaizumi had sighed, but at least the girl behind the counter could flirtily giggle about it. They were sitting next to each other at a small traditional Japanese table, but Iwaizumi’s eyes were on the paintings on the walls, whereas Oikawa’s hungrily took in every visible aspect of his body, drawing out the invisible ones in his mind. 

The tips of his collarbones, peeking up through the neckline of his T-shirt, the muscles and veins crawling over his lower arms, his now perfectly smooth jawline, soon to be lined with the dark stubble he’d felt just four nights ago, when he picked him up from that trashy place of a bar.   
The old lady had been nice, but he was still afraid that Iwaizumi would be out and about drinking himself into oblivion once he got the chance. 

He hoped that his presence would somewhat reduce those chances, but he hadn’t dared to ask - being afraid of the answer. Although that was not what he wanted to think about right now, not when every inch of his body _screamed_ to be touched by the wounded hands right in front of him.   
Their bodies were close, their long legs peeking from under the table, and all Oikawa had to do was drop his left hand about ten centimetres west to find the rigid fabric of Iwaizumi’s jeans.   
It bunched up around his knee, but was perfectly wrapped around his thighs, and he followed the acid wash lines almost all the way up to his hip, hearing the tell-tale sharp intake of breath not far from his ear. ‘’Oikawa…’’   
‘’Ssh. Have you finished your coffee yet?’’ He dragged his fingers up and down along the seam, inching closer and closer to the inside of Iwaizumi’s thighs. 

He was fascinated by the little jumps of muscle his fingertips caused, feeling Iwa-chan shivering slightly right next to him. He was getting way too turned on to stay in a public coffee shop. He’d seen people walk in, only a few, but they hadn’t left. So, as much as he wanted Iwaizumi to fuck him right here, there was only a very small chance of them getting even halfway there. 

He would have to settle for teasing him until Iwa-chan himself couldn’t take it anymore.

That happened the moment Iwaizumi finished his coffee. Well, it had really happened as soon as Oikawa started, but he wouldn’t admit that. Eventually, Oikawa’s hand settle right between his legs; thumb making short strokes as high as he could reach, his wrist most certainly feeling the bulge rapidly forming under the safety of his jeans. 

‘’Oikawa…’’ He got as close to his ear as he could, whispering, praying no one could hear the agitation in his voice. ‘’Yes?’’ Oikawa looked at him with big, innocent puppy eyes.   
He knew _exactly_ what he was doing. ‘’Want to go somewhere else?’’   
Iwaizumi breathed, still struggling to contain himself. 

‘’What? Do you want a second breakfast?’’   
‘’You know what I mean.’’ 

From the crooked grin on his face, Iwaizumi could tell that he knew just what he meant. Besides, _Oikawa_ was the one getting him on edge.   
He stood up, tried not to fall over and only succeeded because he could hold on to the wall, and grabbed Oikawa’s hand. 

‘’You annoying little shit.’’ He said, pushing Oikawa up against his own bedroom door, pinning him with his hips while his hands fiddled with his sweater. 

Oikawa chuckled and pulled him down into a hungry kiss, blindly opening the door.   
They nearly fell into the room. Iwaizumi kicked the door closed and locked it before pulling Oikawa’s sweater over his head. 

He felt as if he was attacking him; walking until he pushed him onto the bed, mouth open at his neck, but Oikawa didn’t seem to mind one bit.   
Especially not when Iwaizumi’s tongue found its way across the hypersensitive skin of his neck and his lower body grinded him down onto the mattress with more force than anyone he’d ever been with - he just arched his back into it and groaned shamelessly. 

His hands found their way down to Iwaizumi’s belt and undid it without any signs of struggle. As he worked Iwaizumi’s jeans down his legs, their lips found each other again, and Iwaizumi was starting to feel… Nervous. 

Sure enough, he would trust Oikawa with his life in the blink of an eye, and the way his hand felt against his cock while he was sizing him up and getting him _worked_ up made him dizzy, but this was the first time he would ever be with another guy.   
He was glad it was Oikawa, yet his stomach was flipping and turning itself into knots, and he felt the tension build in his shoulders. 

He slowly, carefully pulled back from the kiss, catching his breath and trying to think of a way to say how he was feeling. ‘’Tooru…’’ He didn’t mean to use his first name, and perhaps the tone of his voice was telling more than he knew, because Oikawa’s eyes snapped open, and he felt his body stir under his own. 

It was silent for a few seconds before he felt Oikawa’s chest deflate under him, and a soft smile appeared on his face. ‘’First time?’’ He nodded. ‘’I got you, okay?’’ He nodded, again. Something about this whole sex thing with Oikawa made him feel like a teenager. 

Oikawa placed his hand on his cheek and he leant into it, not caring about how juvenile that may have felt or looked, and responded almost with surprise to the soft, chaste kiss. 

They got really into it, even though it was just a lip-lock without any further intentions - it was intoxicating. Both of them forgot they were at Oikawa’s place, and that Oikawa had a roommate. 

Not Suga, he was with Daichi (as he was almost all mornings and nights), but a smaller, fluffier roommate, who hopped on the bed and started sniffing at Oikawa’s cheek. 

Oikawa jumped, and he would have jumped off the bed, if it weren’t for the seventy-five kilograms on top of him. ‘’Inu!’’ He started to giggle, and Iwaizumi sighed. 

‘’I forgot you had that rabbit.’’ 

But even he couldn’t resist the contagiousness of Oikawa’s laugh. 

For some reason, something Satoshi had said came to his mind now: _if you don’t enjoy it, you have the wrong partner._

Oh, he was enjoying this all right. 

He pressed a kiss to Oikawa’s jaw. ‘’Let’s get the elephant out of the room, shall we?’’ Oikawa dryly batted his eyelashes at him, which looked gorgeous. ‘’That is by far the worst joke you’ve ever made.’’ 

But they got up and carefully escorted Inu to the living room, where he hopped into his basket after Oikawa showered him with hugs and kisses and gave him some lettuce to nibble on. 

‘’You’ve never treated me like that.’’ 

Oikawa grinned, grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the bedroom. ‘’I’m about to treat you way better.’’ He was sat down on the bed in ‘’whichever sitting position was most comfortable’’, as Oikawa sat down behind him. 

He had no idea what was going on - was this part of the gay sex ritual he seemed to know absolutely nothing about?  
He thought it was, especially while Oikawa pulled his hoodie from his shoulders. He thought differently when he got up and moved to his closet. 

‘’Take off your shirt.’’   
‘’Yes sir.’’ 

He stuck out his tongue, and got something from a shelf, turning around just in time to watch Iwaizumi pull his T-shirt over his head. If he wasn’t mistaken, Iwaizumi saw a flush on Oikawa’s cheeks. 

With a small bottle of liquid in his hand, Oikawa sat back down behind him. ‘’Your shoulders are a mess.’’ He said, and Iwaizumi was about to ask him what he meant when he felt his hands on his shoulders. 

They were smooth from the oil he’d put on them, warm, and not quite gentle but that was the good part. His long, strong fingers dug into the knots in his muscles and untied them like it was nothing. 

His eyes fluttered shut and he forgot about everything, just letting himself get carried by the steady movements. ‘’Besides,’’ Oikawa’s voice brought him back to reality when he heard an undertone to it he’d never heard before. 

‘’I couldn’t help but notice your little jealousy twitches when you saw me with Thomas a while ago.’’ Iwaizumi’s breath caught in his throat - Oikawa had noticed that? ‘’Forgive me for saying this but, you get really hot when you’re jealous. Your eyes are all sharp stares and you stand so straight you look a metre taller.’’ 

He was enjoying this, Oikawa had enjoyed seeing him get jealous over that stupid, blond-haired, blue-eyed son of a bitch who’d stolen his attention while being half naked.   
Just the thought of it made Iwaizumi stir, and he heard Oikawa chuckle close to his ear. 

‘’For your information, Thomas has a girlfriend all the way back in America. She’s very pretty, with bleached, dying hair and fake lips.’’ 

He wasn’t entirely sure if Oikawa was supportive of it or not, but he couldn’t stop a disapproving noise from leaving his mouth. 

Luckily, his thoughts quickly left his mind when Oikawa’s thumb dug into a particularly strained muscle and he choked on a very different type of noise - holy shit was this actually turning him on? 

His hands left his shoulders for a moment and he felt the difference immediately, they felt so much lighter and looser and - when did he get so sensitive?   
Oikawa was simply touching him, _touching him,_ with his bare hands; up and down his back, along his arms and chest, until he reached his jawline, where he kissed him, and he was panting, his body shivering under every brush of his fingertips. 

Breathing became a conscious exercise when he felt his mouth on his shoulders, hands working under his shoulder blades. His lips were just being there, ghosting over his skin, leaving a trail of airy kisses all over him, and he felt like Oikawa had his soft mouth wrapped around his cock, dragging heat and rhythm all over while his tongue made sure to include every part of his shaft. 

‘’Tooru,’’ he half-breathed, half-moaned, hardly consciously making an effort to sound in control of himself - which he really wasn’t. ‘’Told you I’d get your pressure points.’’ 

He knew vaguely what he was referring to, but his foggy mind couldn’t be bothered to find out just what it was, he could only think of one thing: ‘’Please, please, let me fuck you.’’ 

Oikawa pressed a kiss just beneath his ear. ‘’I’m all yours.’’ 

The nervousness had dissipated, and Iwaizumi would do just about anything to get off now, but that didn’t mean he knew anything about gay sex yet. Perhaps he should’ve read into it, but he had been busy moving his stuff to Kenma and Kuroo’s apartment, not really thinking about his dick was supposed to fit into Oikawa.   
Plus, Oikawa seemed to know all about it. 

‘’You’re going to have to help me out a bit, though.’’ Oikawa sat down in front of him, nodding in understanding. ‘’I suggest we start with clothes.’’ And without further ado, he took off his light-wash jeans, sighing when he tossed his boxers aside. 

‘’Can I help you?’’ 

It wasn’t like they had never seen each other naked before, and Oikawa most certainly had some fun three days ago, but Iwaizumi had never consciously envisioned his smooth skin or the red strain his veins made running from the very tip of his cock to his inner thighs. 

‘’You’re helping me plenty by existing.’’ 

He had no idea where that came from, but the effect was astonishing; a blush creeped down Oikawa’s neck and he turned his head away, uncomfortably shifting his hips. 

He quickly snapped out of it, turned to the nightstand, and took out a bottle. ‘’Anyway, the most important thing is preparation.’’ 

He threw the bottle at Iwaizumi, literally, who caught it at his chest. ‘’There isn’t much left…’’ He studied the clear, kind of jelly-like substance that was presumably lube. ‘’No, but it should suffice your fingers.’’ 

His… Fingers… Interesting. 

Oikawa chuckled at his concentrated and possibly confused expression. ‘’Don’t worry, it’s pretty close to fingering a girl, the place is just a little different.’’ 

He hummed in agreement, not quite able to wrap his head around what was happening. That feeling intensified when Oikawa got closer and very slowly but with clear intentions started to kiss him. 

He was soft and smooth wherever Iwaizumi’s hands went but his tongue was hot and his movements were rougher than he was used to, although it all made sense somehow. 

Oikawa straddled him, soft noises coming from his mouth whenever their hips collided and Iwaizumi was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one completely ready to get rid of those stupid boxers he was wearing that made for a barrier between them. 

‘’All right, all right,’’ Oikawa was breathing fast and though his hands were somewhere on his back, Iwaizumi could feel the heat coming from his crotch. ‘’Let’s move on because otherwise you certainly won’t last.’’ 

It wasn’t meant as an insult, but it still felt a little weird. Usually Iwaizumi lasted until Misaki had climaxed, or they came together - he didn’t expect it to be that different with Oikawa. Who was laying back and spreading his legs, perfectly exposing himself. 

‘’You don’t immediately have to go for it, you can just… Feel me up first, if you like.’’ He doubted anyone had ever said no to that, as he slid his hand along the muscle lines of Oikawa’s inner thigh. ‘’You’re so pretty,’’ he said, unintentionally out loud, while looking at his chest.   
A tremble went through Oikawa’s body and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the compliment or because of his hand that was inching closer to his entrance. 

Taking a staggering inhale, he touched at the rim. It was quite rigid but it flexed under his touch and he saw the jumping of muscle in his legs and stomach. To ease his own mind, he started circling the rim slowly, trying to stimulate relaxation as well, somehow. 

When he looked up, however, he saw that it wasn’t just him who was nervous; Oikawa had his arm over his face, his lips slightly parted, and goosebumps had risen all over his neck and chest. 

He wanted to say something, tell him it was going to be fine, but really, he hardly had any idea of what was happening. Hell, Misaki was the only person he’d ever had sex with, for all he knew, he could suck at it for everyone else but her.   
He tried his best to push that thought away as the very tip of his finger pushed into Oikawa, making him squeak. 

Yes, squeak. 

His eyes snapped open and he shifted. ‘’Iwa-chan,’’ his voice was unusually high and now Iwaizumi was entirely certain he wasn’t the only nervous person in the room. ‘’U-use the lube for this, please.’’ 

Right. 

He retracted both his hands from Oikawa’s body, leaving him shivering a little, and patted the bed down for the bottle of jelly liquid.   
Luckily, it was close next to him and he wasn’t shaking from nervousness too much to get it everywhere. 

‘’Where do I put this?’’ He felt a stupid for asking, but for all he knew his entire hand was supposed to go in there before his dick was even allowed close. ‘’Index and middle finger should do the trick, and I’ll let you know if I need a third before I’m ready.’’ 

He coated his fingers and nearly emptied the bottle doing it, but he figured the more, the better. ‘’One finger at the time.’’ At least he’d figured that out before Oikawa said it. 

He tried to be extra careful when he pushed in, but the way Oikawa bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut made him feel careless. 

‘’You are quite sensitive, no?’’ 

He ran his other hand along the side of his face, and Oikawa stuttered a sigh. ‘’Six days, Iwa-chan, six…’’ He cut himself off when Iwaizumi moved his finger, exploring the pulsing heat of his insides.   
It was hot and it was tight and he wondered in all honesty how he was ever supposed to fit in there for the hundredth time. 

He bent over and ghosted his tongue over Oikawa’s lips, making drop open. ‘’Iwa…’’ He had no idea if he was going to add a suffix or the rest of his name, but Iwaizumi knew what Oikawa meant from the shallowness of his voice. 

As gently and smoothly as he could, glad for once he had bitten his nails to shreds, he added a second finger, really focusing on working him open now. The noises coming from between Oikawa’s slightly parted lips cheering him on. 

He had planned on letting Oikawa tell him when it was time to move on, but he could feel himself - and his cock - growing more and more restless by the minute. Oikawa must have felt it too, because he waved towards the nightstand, in which he found a pack of condoms. 

He didn’t dare openly question Oikawa’s decisions, and just rolled with it. He pulled back his fingers, carefully, but Oikawa still whimpered. 

He decided to take that as a compliment. 

Taking off his boxers felt final but the chilly morning air was welcoming on the intense heat that had collected in his crotch. Putting on the condom made him realise how focused he’d been on doing this right and had failed to notice how aroused he’d gotten; the slight movement made him shiver. 

‘’How much do you think I need?’’ 

Oikawa groaned in restless protest and pressed his hips down onto the mattress, as if it were to provide him any pleasure. 

‘’Tooru.’’   
‘’Add a small layer on and see how that works.’’ 

The agitation shone through in his voice, and Iwaizumi had to agree with him, he wanted to get on too, but he’d rather wait than hurt him. 

There was more shivering and he even tried to conceal a moan when he touched himself, but after what felt like an eternity, he was done. Without asking, Oikawa lifted himself up and helped Iwaizumi align them at least semi-properly. 

They locked eyes and Oikawa nodded. ‘’Just take it slow.’’ He said it with a hint of confidence, but something told Iwaizumi that he wanted nothing more than to just be _fucked_ right now.   
He was almost prepared to give him just that, but then he saw his expression unravel as he slowly slid into him. 

He dropped his head back on the covers and his hand frantically scrambled around until it found Iwaizumi’s waist and he dug his nails into his skin. With every push, his mouth opened a little further and he soon had his eyes screwed shut. It was only when Iwaizumi was in completely, that his other hand pressed against his chest, and in a soft, high voice strangled with suppressed moans said: ‘’Wait-wait… Let… Let me adjust.’’ 

He shifted a bit, gasped, dug his fingers into Iwaizumi’s skin deeper and looked generally gorgeous, even though he was just laying there. 

Iwaizumi noticed he hadn’t breathed in a while.   
He tried to slowly take a deep breath in, but all that happened was stammered gulping of oxygen and he pushed out the carbon dioxide as fast as he could. 

Even through all the opening up and countless times Oikawa had had sex before, he was still tight around his length and the pressure was almost painful.   
He hardly dared to think of moving. Perhaps Oikawa had been right when he said he wouldn’t last. 

Speaking of which, he was still squirming, noises falling from his lips like a waterfall. 

‘’ _Fuck,_ you feel good.’’ 

A low, animalistic grunt rumbled from Iwaizumi’s chest, and through gritted teeth he said: ‘’If you keep on talking like that, I’ll come before I can make you feel even better.’’ 

That aside, the line sounded like one from some terrible porn. Or any porn, really. 

Nevertheless, the way it made Iwaizumi feel didn’t even come close to any ‘’feeling’’ he had ever seen displayed in porn. Trying to get porn thoughts out of his head, Iwaizumi placed his hands on Oikawa’s waist, holding him firmly but not squeezing in any way, and slowly started thrusting. 

The rhythm was almost agonising but the hot squeeze and pull of the friction of Oikawa’s inside was getting him so close to orgasm in so little time he hardly dared to go any faster. 

Oikawa was _clawing_ at him, nails scraping over his thighs, his back, anywhere he could reach, and now he was opening his mouth. 

‘’Please, more, please, please…’’ And holy shit Iwaizumi had to bite the inside of his cheek to prevent him from coming right there and then. ‘’Tooru… I’m so close - I can’t…’’ 

He buried his face in Oikawa’s neck breathed in his scent, now mixed with the salty smell of sweat and sex and tried to regain control over himself but it didn’t work and honestly being so close to Oikawa and perfectly able to hear every little sound he made just sent him right over the edge and before he knew it his cock was pulsing and everything behind his eyes went white.   
He came in stutters and he was all heavy breaths and blood rushing so hard in his ears he couldn’t hear anything else for a good minute. 

Gradually, he gained back sense and realised that Oikawa was still a whimpering, rock hard mess under him. He’d possibly tried to reach down to get himself off but Iwaizumi’s body had blocked him.   
Which was for the better because no way in hell was he going to let Oikawa jerk off right now. 

Part of this, he had done plenty of times, and he knew just what to do. He pulled out, tossed a very sticky condom aside, and laid down on his stomach right in front of Oikawa’s spread legs, swatting away any hands that came in his direction. 

He knew Oikawa was dying to get off and his cock was straining, but he still planted a quick few kisses on his inner thighs before he got to work. As for the other part of his little plan… Well, he’d felt Satoshi, Oikawa and Misaki wrap their mouths around him and knew how they blew someone so he was fairly educated on the subject at hand. 

Even though it was a little one sided. 

He also knew that the first time he was probably going to choke and possibly tear up, but he dismissed those thoughts and gradually slid his lips down along Oikawa’s cock, until he couldn’t go down any further, unless he wanted to gag. 

He could tell Oikawa was trying to be helpful, he could feel the way he pressed himself down onto the bed instead of up into his throat, and he was very, very glad, and would give him something to sink down on in just a few seconds. 

He moved around a bit so his right arm was free and he was holding himself up with his left, and then, without looking, slid two of his fingers into Oikawa’s now perfectly slick entrance. 

Iwaizumi tried to bob his head and use his tongue at the same time but it was either one or the other right now so he went with the first one and focused on his fingers.   
Meanwhile Oikawa was littering him with little praises and _oh_ s and _ah_ s. 

‘’H… Hajime… Try - try c-curling your fingers…’’ 

_Oh fuck._

Even he was losing it right now, and no one was touching him. He did as he was told though, feeling the moving of veins under his fingertips, and Oikawa arched his back and almost _screamed._

Iwaizumi didn’t know what he had done, but he was thoroughly enjoying the reaction, so he did it again. ‘’Yes, yes Hajime, oh my God go on.’’ 

He could have been buried balls deep into him, and it still wouldn’t have felt half as good as this - Oikawa was moaning _his_ name. At the third curl of his fingers, he felt Oikawa’s cock pulsing, and he realised too late that he had, as a matter of fact, his mouth wrapped right around it. 

He came almost all at once and it took a second for the taste to settle in. Iwaizumi pulled back and tried to find a place where he could spit it out, but there was no sink in Oikawa’s room and running out of the door just seemed inappropriate, so he squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed. 

At least the taste was gone soon. 

But then he got a view of Oikawa. The morning light fell and splintered to pieces through the window, scattering all over his soft, pale skin, the heavy rising and falling of his chest looked like ocean waves crashing against a shore consisting of the kind of sand that gently tickled your feet instead of pebbles that cut through your skin and threw the salty seawater right into the wound. 

One of his legs was dangling of the bed and he had once again covered his face with his arm. Iwaizumi leant over him, pressing a kiss to his arm, and whispered: ‘’You’re way too gorgeous right now to be hiding your face.’’ 

Oikawa didn’t have the energy to shoot him an angry or even embarrassed look, he just dropped his arm around Iwaizumi’s neck and let him enjoy the red flush on his cheeks. 

They laid together for a while, sharing feathery kisses and warmth. After about fifteen minutes, Oikawa gasped. ‘’Are you even supposed to have sex on the first date?’’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So have y'all ever gotten cock-blocked by a rabbit before?


	11. What Was It All For?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the last chapter, we're going to make one last p.o.v. switch.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: Rape.

The 25th of April, 2018.

His phone had had the sound on when he received it, but he was in the middle of a photoshoot, and it had been stuffed in his bag that was three doors down the hallway and then to the right. 

When he checked his phone, he was alone in that room, and he was very glad to be. 

On his screen was a message, saying ‘’Isn’t he pretty?’’, and above that, an image. It was blurry because he hadn’t downloaded it yet, but from the colour scheme, he could tell what it was. 

Usually, he didn’t download those kinds of photos. Angry boyfriends or girlfriends that sent him threatening messages just because he had messed with their boyfriend a bit. Downloading and responding didn’t help those cases; he just blocked and deleted their number and conversation.   
But now… He knew who this was, and he knew who sent it. 

Tooru. 

He’d heard Iwaizumi slur that name too many damn times; he just didn’t know when to shut up about the guy. 

Without any conscious thought, his thumb slid over the screen and hit the download button. He was not disappointed. Iwaizumi had his eyes closed, his hand covering his mouth. He was laid back on a bed with crisp white sheets that made his slightly tan skin look much darker.   
His shirt had been pushed up to reveal his stomach, where a certain someone had very strategically placed his hand, pale in contrast to Iwaizumi. 

His eyes travelled down, and he took in a sharp breath in anticipation. Traces of saliva shimmered in the late afternoon sunlight right around the base of Iwaizumi’s cock, and for a moment, he could feel the weight of it in his throat, the heat of the skin on his tongue. Blood rushed all the way from the centre of his face down to his ears and neck, then further down, collecting in uncomfortable - but oddly welcome - warmth between his legs. 

He stared at the photo for a long time, his mind running wild until his feet hurt from standing and his hands were itching to touch himself. ‘’No.’’ He said out loud. ‘’I am not jerking off to a photo of some guy like some desperate teenager.’’ 

 

Just three seconds later, there was a knock on the door. In an effort to hide his very obvious boner, he sat down on a chair and crossed his legs. ‘’Come in.’’ His voice sounded weird. 

‘’Satoshi?’’ 

It was Hunichi, thank God. ‘’Yes?’’ 

The door opened and Hunichi’s sparkling naturally brown eyes peeked around the corner. 

‘’Hey.’’ 

‘’Hey.’’ 

His voice was still strange, it sounded almost choked, and even higher than his normal voice. Hunichi approached him, closing the door behind him, and pressed a kiss to his lips. 

‘’What are you doing?’’ Satoshi shrugged. ‘’Just chilling, the shoot was pretty heavy duty today.’’   
‘’Aha. Adidas, right?’’   
He nodded. 

His erection wasn’t going away. He knew he couldn’t will away the blood or something, but Hunichi should have served as a good distraction. 

He didn’t. 

It was quiet for a while, an odd, awkward silence. ‘’So… What is next on your schedule?’’ Satoshi coughed to try and get rid of some weird feeling in his throat; his mind had wandered off to the photo again, but the feeling didn’t go away. ‘’Uhm nothing. Just going to go home, eat, and sleep, I guess.’’   
‘’You’re not going anywhere tonight?’’ 

He shook his head. ‘’Then maybe I could come with you and give you something to do?’’   
He grinned. ‘’What, like yourself?’’ Hunichi winked. ‘’Or… Maybe here.’’ 

Hunichi slid his hand from his cheek to his hair. As much as his body was absolutely begging for some kind of release from the raging boner he still had from that stupid photo, Satoshi really didn’t feel like being with Hunichi right now.   
He was a cool guy and all but their sex was just not that great. 

Besides, something about Hunichi set off alarms in Satoshi’s head. He’d tried to push it away, and succeeded for the most part, but there was something nagging, nevertheless. He didn’t know exactly what it was, it was just a gut feeling. 

_Never had that with Iwaizumi…_

He attempted to push that thought away, too, but all it did was bounce around his head, repeating over and over again. ‘’No,’’ he said. ‘’Not here, please. There are cameras and I don't have a lock on my door. People could see us, or walk in.’’ 

Hunichi’s hand travelled down his shoulder. ‘’I didn’t think you were the kind of person to care if anyone saw us. I think I actually heard you say that once.’’ 

‘’I… I’m just tired, okay? I’ve had a long day.’’ He felt his warm, soft lips on his jaw, then in his neck. ‘’Really? You know I can’t imagine that modeling is hard. All you do is sit around in a few positions wearing pretty clothes, and maybe someone tells you to move around a bit. You know what’s hard? Making music. We practiced six hours today, I’m already getting sore.’’ 

Satoshi didn’t respond; he’d tried to explain multiple times that modeling wasn’t just sitting around, but it had never worked out. Hunichi couldn’t be bothered to listen. 

Pretty. 

He’d said ‘’pretty clothes’’, just as Tooru had said about Iwaizumi. Isn’t he pretty? He’d heard Iwaizumi say it a ton of times when he was drunk, high, or both, and talking about Tooru again. 

_He is so pretty, Satoshi. He has this super soft hair, I swear he puts like unicorn piss in it or something to make it soft and smooth. And his eyes, oh my God, Satoshi, I could stare into his eyes forever. It’s like they tell a whole story, and he doesn’t even have to open his mouth._

He wondered for a second if Hunichi talked that way when he was drunk about him, but he had seen him drunk, and all he wanted to do was have his dick sucked.   
Even though he hardly got hard when he was drunk, so there really was no use to it. 

He felt his hand on his hip, nudging at the fabric of his post-work loose cargo pants. He groaned in protest, but Hunichi only took it as encouragement, and started kissing him. Or rather, stuck his tongue down his throat. There was more groaning, higher, almost scared, but Hunichi wasn’t catching on. 

He tried pushing him away, gently, with his hand against his chest, but this only resulted in a strong hand on the back of his neck, holding him in place. He clawed with his hands at his chest, panicked noises coming from behind the strain of Hunichi’s tongue, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing. 

Hunichi’s hand went to his crotch and of course he felt his hard-on, which was luckily getting less at the absence of air in his lungs, but Hunichi didn’t know about the photo so he must have figured it was because of him. 

He gladly took that presumed compliment and practically shoved his hand down his pants, at which Satoshi shrieked and jumped back, but it was no use - he could have kicked and punched all he wanted, Hunichi was way too strong for him. 

Thus, all that was left were tears running down his face, in tiny little rivers, onto his cheeks and eventually into his mouth, where they left a salty taste. 

Hunichi felt him up and agonisingly slowly tried to jerk him off, causing nothing but a burning feeling of embarrassment to burn in Satoshi’s chest. Their mouths were still somewhat connected, and he felt Hunichi’s fast breathing from his front teeth all the way to his tonsils. 

He’d given up on trying to resist and his hands just laid at his sides, going numb. He was slowly losing all feeling in his body, only a buzz in his head remained. 

‘’What the fuck?’’ 

He didn’t know how long it had been, didn’t really know what had happened between the moment he spaced out and until Hunichi spoke. It could have been ten seconds, or ten minutes for all he knew. 

‘’Why aren’t you cumming? Shouldn’t you be turned on right now? I am jerking you off in a public place, for fuck’s sake! You can’t just go flaccid on me!’’ 

He didn’t answer, instead, he looked at him, noticing how blurred his vision was. It took a long time to realise that he was still crying. 

‘’You know what? Fuck this. Go home, sleep, or something.’’ 

He blinked and Hunichi was standing up, the hands going away, shoving him away, and then he was gone. He didn’t even bother to slam the door behind him.   
Or maybe he did.   
Satoshi couldn’t tell, not really. 

\----------------

He couldn’t bring himself to eat. 

How was he supposed to when he felt like he could hardly breathe? 

The food would just block up his throat, he would choke and die. 

He did eventually fall asleep, after staring at his ceiling for what felt like hours.

_Sometimes, I swear. Okay, okay, he is like, super obsessed with aliens. Kinda how you are obsessed with getting fucked up, right? So I swear to you, one day, he looked at the stars so long, they fell into his eyes, and just sorta made themselves at home there._

Maybe he should put those glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, he thought. 

 

The next morning, his stomach was growling so loud he forced down a bowl of soup, but he wasn’t feeling hungry. He knew he was hungry, but he just didn’t feel it. 

When he looked at his phone, it had about 16% left. On that 16 %, he responded to a text from his sister, Amaya, who was currently in London, working on a business project. 

Amaya was about five years older than him and absolutely lovely.   
She’d done a management study a few years back and was now working as the second in command of a company that sold drawing tablets.   
In this day and age, the company was absolutely thriving. Although Satoshi had argued plenty of times that it was because of Amaya, her skills were absolutely impeccable. 

‘You should come around sometime!’ She’d texted. ‘Sounds great!’ He’d replied, but he hadn’t meant it. 

He maybe had just enough money in his bank account to buy an aeroplane ticket, but he had many more photoshoots planned over the coming months, and he wasn’t about to give up on his career to go visit his sister. 

Maybe, in a few months, he could go over for a weekend. His phone died shortly after he checked his Snapchat stories, and then he couldn’t do anything. 

He was supposed to work out today, build up his core, but he could hardly bring himself to get up from the table.   
His personal trainer would call him, but who cared? His phone was dead anyway. 

He sat at the table until little flecks of afternoon light fell through his window. Then, on autopilot, he got up, fell over because his legs were completely asleep, and made his way to the bathroom with pins and needles all over his body. 

He realised he was still wearing the clothes from yesterday; cargo pants and a thin black hoodie. He put them in a pile in the corner of the room before he got in the shower. 

The water was hot, but the burning was nice on his skin; it made him feel something. His shampoo smelled nice, too, like roses. Hey, so did his shower gel. Oh, right, he’d gotten a rose-scented gift set in the mail from some company he’d modelled for a while ago. Their products were pretty good, so he figured that posing in a strangely large bath with about a million bubbles completely naked until the water ran cold was worth it. 

The paycheck wasn’t. 

From the shower, he dropped into his bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, hair still wet and untouched, water still sliding down his arms and legs. He was exhausted. 

When he woke up again it was with a heavy heart and a pounding head.   
Dehydration, he figured quickly. 

He literally fell out of bed, because that was the only way he thought he’d ever get out, and basically crawled to the kitchen. Sitting on the cold tile floor, he sipped a bottle of water until he was about halfway.   
The headache hadn’t left but he couldn’t drink anymore, either. 

His fingers drew imaginary patterns on the floor until his fingers were Hunichi’s fingers and he felt the hand at the back of his neck and the tongue in his mouth and the other hand wrapped around him and he couldn’t breathe anymore.   
He was going to die, he was sure of it.   
There was no more air inside his lungs and none would come in, he was going to suffocate. He was gasping and screaming and he never felt the tears running down his face but he knew they were there. 

‘’Let go!’’ 

A voice was coming from somewhere in the hallway. It must have been a girl whose purse was being stolen by some low-life NEET. 

‘’Let go!’’ She yelled again and Satoshi wondered why she didn’t just give him her purse. It could never have been that important. Anyone who lived in his building would be able to afford at least three other purses. 

‘’LET GO!’’ 

He was thrown back into the cupboard he was sitting against, hitting his elbow on the drawers, and coming back into reality. His throat was hurting it was only then that he realised there was no NEET stealing someone’s purse - he had been the one screaming. 

He curled into a ball and just sat there for a while, focusing only on his breathing, telling himself over and over again that he wasn’t dead. He hadn’t suffocated, and he was all alone. 

Hunichi was probably out somewhere getting wasted, there was no way he could come into his apartment. 

Right? 

Oh God, what if there was? What if he’d stolen a key from him someday and could now use it to barge in whenever he wanted? That meant he could come in when he was sleeping and… 

He had to lock the door in such a way no one from the outside could come in. He got to his feet, groaning at the pain in his head, and made his way to his door. He locked the deadbolts and sank back down to the floor. 

How come he was so tired all the time? 

He dragged himself to the couch, not seeing why he would go all the way to his bedroom if this did the job fine too. His body didn’t allow him any sleep though. His tongue was dry and his eyes were stinging, but unconsciousness didn’t take him away. 

He lied there, on his overly expensive suede cushions, eyes fluttering around the room, for hours, and nothing happened.   
No one even so much as walked the hallway. 

He was tired, he was so, so tired, yet he was completely awake and alert, aware of every little noise around him.

Eventually, the sun rose and his body was begging him to drink something, hence he made his way back to the kitchen and successfully downed an entire bottle of soda. He opened the cupboard under the sink to throw it away and his eyes fell on a large container with bleach. 

_If I drink that, I won’t have to be scared anymore._ He thought. _If I drink that, maybe I’ll wake up and feel energised again. Or maybe I’ll never wake up again…_

Next thing he knew he was on his bathroom floor, hands in his hair, screams bouncing off the walls.   
He didn’t know what happened between the moment he looked at the bleach and now. Had he drunk it?   
Frantically, he looked around for any signs of it, but there weren’t any.   
No bottles, no vomit anywhere, no blood, and he felt somewhat fine.   
A little better now that there was liquid in his body, but still weak and fatigued.   
‘’Fuck.’’ He whispered to himself, and it was the first conscious word that left his mouth that day.

 

He knew he had to tell someone, he didn’t have to go on the internet looking at Yahoo Answers or some kind of forum to realise it, but he didn’t know how. 

The police wouldn’t take him seriously, and he was too afraid to tell any of his friends, since most of them were also friends with Hunichi.   
He was his boyfriend after all.   
The thought made his shoulders tremble and tears stung behind his eyes, he was his boyfriend. 

In the end, there were two people he knew he could trust this secret with, and one of them had punched him in the face about a week ago. 

But he couldn’t let go of Iwaizumi. 

It was painful and it was strange, but every time he thought about him, not even the photo he got from Tooru, just him, his heart stuttered in his chest and his stomach did a weird flip. 

Then there was his sister. 

Amaya, he knew she would take him seriously and he knew she wouldn’t tell a living soul if he asked her to. But she was also in London at the moment. 

He tried to write it down, he sat at his desk, staring at a blank paper for ages, but his hand wouldn’t move, his head couldn’t form the words.   
Typing it didn’t work either.   
His laptop broke two weeks back and he hadn’t replaced it yet, and his phone was still dead. 

When was his next shoot again?   
What day was it even?   
Did Iwaizumi have Facebook? 

It was the last question that made him plug his phone into the charger, after leaving it on his kitchen table for forty-seven hours. 

He fell asleep while it charged on his nightstand. 

When he woke up, it was at a hundred percent but still locked, so he unplugged and unlocked it, and searched the entirety of Facebook for someone named Iwaizumi. 

Sadly, he didn’t find the Iwaizumi he was looking for (he did find a few hundred others, including some obvious catfish).   
On Instagram though, he was a little luckier. 

He found someone under the name @iwaizumihajime_, and suddenly recalled the beautiful girl he’d seen the night they met, yelling ‘’IWAIZUMI HAJIME’’ before he left. 

Sadly, the most recent photo was of two years ago: a blurry black and white of an empty volleyball court, captioned ‘Our home away from home’. 

Vaguely, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that Iwaizumi had played volleyball, a long time ago, but he couldn’t have been very passionate about it, otherwise he would have continued playing. 

In his tagged photos, however, he found the account of his girlfriend, @xxmisakixx.   
There were various, very nice, photos of them, some of sceneries, too. 

Mostly photos on which they were kissing, which made Satoshi feel sick.   
When he finished going through Misaki’s account, he stumbled upon another one, from @prettiestsetter. 

He had no idea who this was at first, but then he saw his face, and he just _knew_. 

This was Tooru. 

His last name was Oikawa and he was very active. Very attractive, too. Iwaizumi’s drunk self had a point when he’d said he was ‘’gorgeous’’, he supposed. There were also about zero photos of this Oikawa with anyone else but tagged as a ‘’friend’’, ‘’teammate’’ or ‘’only the funniest American ever’’, so either he had no photos at all of his boyfriend online (which would be weird, considering how keen he was on sharing his whole life on social media), or he had deleted all of his exes. 

He’d tagged Iwaizumi in some old volleyball photos, as well as two selfies of the two of them, in which they made funny faces whilst staying oddly attractive. 

_I’m telling you, he is the prettiest setter you will ever see._

Oh, wait. After a quick Google search, Satoshi knew that a ‘’setter’’ was not only a large dog, but also a position in volleyball.   
So, Oikawa must have been Iwaizumi’s setter, and they must have connected somehow on the court or something. Either way, judging from Iwaizumi’s stories and Oikawa’s Instagram, they had been pretty close. 

Finally, Satoshi took some time to go through the countless notifications he’d received over the time his phone was dead. 

Most were texts and missed calls from his agent, reminding him he’d missed a shoot today and that she was livid.   
He was in trouble. 

There were emails, mostly spam and advertisements, but one from his mother who was currently in South Korea on vacation. His two others were probably at home right now, cooking dinner or something. 

Part of him wanted to go over there and call for their attention; tell them what happened, cry his eyes dry, and feel better. 

But who said he would feel any better? 

For all he knew, he could feel worse, or the same. He wasn't sure which of these would hurt more. 

\-----------

“Kato!” 

Someone was at the door. They were banging their hand on it, actually. 

Had they been there for a long time? 

“Kato Satoshi! Open up the door!” 

Possibly, judging from their tone. Oh wait, he knew who that was... 

‘’Kato! I will call the police!’’ 

Perhaps it only took a few seconds, but in his head, it felt like a half an hour tour to the door, and the handle was heavy. 

He forgot he had the deadbolts on it, and was very confused about why the door didn’t open at first. 

‘’Hello Aika-san.’’ 

He tried to smile, but knew that even if he had succeeded, it would have looked extremely fake. ‘’Kato. What have you been up to?’’ 

He sighed, looking around him as if the room were to provide an answer. Finally, the most honest words he couldn’t even consciously think of fell from his lips. 

‘’I don’t know.’’ 

For a moment, he thought he was about to cry, but nothing happened, and his agent just pulled him into the apartment. 

‘’Sit down. You look like death warmed up.’’ 

He followed her order and plopped on a chair at the kitchen table. Aika wasn’t a woman who liked to waste time; she immediately set to work cooking up a meal, and all he could do was watch her exotic curls dance on her back, where they were tied into a ponytail. 

Aika was originally from somewhere in Africa, but he could never remember where exactly, and she hardly ever talked about it.   
She’d moved to Japan when she was very little and knew all the customs and unspoken social rules precisely, but Satoshi guessed something inside of her was still a sturdy and strong African woman that took no shit from anyone. 

‘’Drink.’’ 

She put down a huge steaming mug of fresh green tea in front of him, and a tall glass of water next to it. 

She was insanely good at taking care of people, whether that was physically or mentally. Sometimes Satoshi wondered why she had chosen to become a modelling agent, of all things, but then he heard her voice yell at the photographers sitting behind the cameras and he remembered why.   
There wasn’t anything else she could do, with her protective and loving, yet fierce and powerful nature. 

She had been with him from the beginning of his career and he incredibly grateful to have her in his life. 

When he’d finished his tea, she had finished the food, and he basically devoured the rice, fish and steamed vegetables she’d prepared for him. His mind was in no state to eat, but his body felt starved. 

‘’Listen.’’ 

She sat down across from him, folding her hands on the table. ‘’I know what happened to you.’’ 

She was quiet for a moment, waiting for his reply, but all Satoshi could feel was the squeeze of a hand around his neck. 

No air was coming in, none was going out. 

He could only stare at her. 

‘’You never show up late or stay away, and since we had shoots at the same location for two weeks, I went into your changing room to see if you were there and I hadn’t seen you.’’ 

She was twisting her thumbs, wiggling a bit on her chair. ‘’You weren’t, and it was a mess. Clothes, makeup, other stuff…’’ 

She gestured with her hand, and Satoshi noticed it was shaking. 

‘’And I felt pain in my stomach, as if I had eaten something wrong, even though I hadn’t. I went down to the security and I looked at the tapes from when you were here and I saw you and that boy…’’ 

Satoshi didn’t know how she had gotten to those tapes legally, but he figured it was best not to ask. 

Something in him was just very glad that at least one person knew, even if that person was his agent.   
Something else wanted to run to the toilet and throw up the food he had just eaten, because he was feeling nauseated. 

‘’You should go to the police.’’ 

Now he was shaking, and he looked at Aika, the tremors in his body disturbing his vision. 

‘’What?’’   
‘’You have to go to the police, he can’t walk around like that.’’ 

Aika had never liked Hunichi, and if Satoshi had been in the right mind, he would have now realised why - she had seen right through him from the beginning.   
She had seen he wasn’t an honest person, or a good one, for that matter. 

But right now, all he could think of was that Hunichi would get word of him going to the police and attack him.   
Who presses charges on their boyfriend? 

He started to shake his head, and his feet were moving.   
He scrambled out of his chair, through the front door, all the way down the stairs, and fell out of the apartment building door, onto the pavement. 

He was heaving, unsure if he wasn’t breathing because he just ran down five flights of stairs or because he hadn’t been able to breathe for the past… 

Days? 

Weeks? 

He had no idea. 

He was on his hands and knees, and before he realised it, his stomach was convulsing and the food Aika had cooked for him was on the pavement. 

‘’Kato!’’ 

He felt a warm hand on his back, and knew that it was Aika. 

‘’I’m sorry, I didn’t know you would react this way. We don’t have to go to the police if you don’t want to.’’ 

He shook his head, aware of the sour taste in his mouth, and the salty tears slowly rolling down his face. ‘’Come on, let’s get you back home.’’ 

He let himself get practically carried inside, to the elevator, and back into his apartment, where the door was still open. 

She pulled his dirty shirt over his head and put on a new one, gave him more tea that calmed his stomach, and put him in his bed, the soft comfort of his bed dragging him into sleep.

 

\--------------

When he woke up, his head was clear. 

Well, sort of. 

There was one idea that was clear, and he followed it like a voice that called. 

The voice called him to a closet where he put on a sweater and shoes. 

Then to the kitchen where he drank a glass of water and ate something that vaguely tasted of bread, but he wasn’t entirely conscious of his actions. 

He was led to the front door, where he got his keys and wallet off a small table. 

He walked down the hall to the elevator, and when the doors opened he went outside, somewhat aware of the spring drizzle tickling his face. 

He got on a bus and almost rode it to the end, then got on another bus. 

When he got out, he walked into a large building with humming heaters that you couldn’t hear over people’s voices even if you tried. 

He went to a ticket booth and made direct eye contact with the young man behind the counter. 

‘’One-way to London, please.’’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you hate me yet?


End file.
